DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES 



|TX 609 
I .U6 

1918 

Copy 1 



HEARING 



BEFORE THE 



_SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE 

COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY 

UNITED STATES'SENATE 



A 

SIXTY-FIFTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 
ON 



S. 3665 



A BILL TO ENABLE THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE TO 

ESTABLISH PLANTS IN CONNECTION WITH LAND-GRANT 

COLLEGES FOR THE DRYING OR DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS 

AND VEGETABLES, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES 



Printed for tlie use of the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry 




-WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1918 



,■**« 



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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY. 

THOMAS P. GORE, Oklahoma, Chairman. 
GEORGE E. CHAMBERLAIN, Oregon. FRANCIS E. WARREN, Wyoming. 

ELLISON D. SMITH, South Carolina. CARROLL S. PAGE, Vermont. 

HOKE SMITH, Georgia. ASLB J. GRONNA, North Dakota. 

MORRIS SHEPPARD, Texas. GEORGE W. NORRIS, Nebraska. 

JOSEPH E. RANSDELL, Louisiana. WILLIAM S. KENYON, Iowa. 

WILLIAM H. THOMPSON, Kansas. JAl^IES W. WADSWORTH, .Jr., New Y<: 

ED. S. JOHNSON, South Dakota. 
JOHN B. KENDRICK, Wyoming. 

J. ROT Thompson, Clerk. 



t>. •f ^• 

JUN 6 '1919 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1918. 

United States Senate, 
Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, 

Washingtony D. C . 
The committee met, pursuant to call at 2.30 o'clock p. m., in room 
No. 326, Senate Office Building, Senator Thomas P. Gore, presiding. 
Present: Senators Gore (chairman). Smith of South Carolina, 
Smith of Georgia, Sheppard, Ransdell, Gronna, and Norris. 

The committee proceeded to consider the bill (S. 3665), as follows: 

[S. 3665, Sixty-fifth Congress, second session.] 

A BILL to enable tlie Secretary of Agriculture to establish plants in connection with land- 
grant colleges for the di-ying or dehydration of fruits and vegetables, and for other 
purposes. 

Be it enacted hy the Senate aiul House of Representatives of the United States 
of America in Congress assembled, That $250,000, or so much thereof as may be 
necessary, is hereby appropriated, out of any moneys in the Treasury not other- 
wise appropriated, to enable the Secretary of Agriculture to establish plants 
for the dryinj; or dehydration of vegetables, fruits, and other edible products, 
in connection with the land-grant colleges in the several States : Provided, That 
the Secretary of .Agriculture may establish such plant at some other location in 
any particular State whenever in his .iudgment the public interest would be 
subserved thereby : Provided fxirtlier, That the Secretary of Agriculture may, 
in his discretion, establish such plant in any particular State in cooperation 
with States, counties, municipalities, individuals, or associations not organized 
for profit, in which case the Secretary of Agriculture shall not pay more than 
one-half of the cost of establishing such plant. ' - 

The Chairman. Mr. Horst, who will make the first statement, 
comes to Washington, as I understand, accredited by Gov. Stephens, 
of California. I believe you bring a letter from Gov. Stephens to 
the President? 

STATEMENT OF MR. E. CLEMENS HORST, SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. Here it is. 

(The letter referred to by Mr. Horst is here printed in- full as fol- 
lows:) 

State or California, 
Sacramento, December 29, 1917. 
Hon. WooDEOw Wilson, 

The President, Washioigton, D. C. 
Sir: This will Introduce to you Mr. E. Clemens Horst, of California, who 
desires to take up with you the question of drying vegetables by the people of 
the United States for use in tlieir liomes and by the United States Army and 
Navy. 

I understand Mr. Horst is willing to give without charge to the Government 
and is willing to teach to a great number of people without any profit to him- 
self the process of drving the vegetables which he will show you. 

3 



4 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

The conservation of food and the supply of our people and our military 
forces is so vital, and Mr. Horst's ideas seem so worthy of careful investigation, 
that I specially request an audience for him and a careful consideration of 
his plans. 

Very truly, yours, 

Wm. D. Stephens, Governor. 

Mr. HoEST. This letter was presented to President Wilson by 
Senator McNary who gave to the President with the letter a line 
of a dozen or more of my dried vegetables. President Wilson ac- 
knowledge the same by letter as follows : 

The White House, 
Washinr/ton, February J, 1918. 
My Dear Senator McNary : It was very kind and thoughtful of you to send 
me the dried tomatoes and mixed vegetables for soup. I am looking forward 
with pleasure to sampling them. I am very glad indeed to see every sort of 
effort made for the conservation of food and this particular form of that effort 
interests me very much. 

Cordially and sincerely, yours, 

WooDRow Wilson. 
Hon. Charles L. McNary, 

United States Senate. 

The Chairman. What is your business, Mr. Horst? 

Mr. HoKST. I am a merchant and farmer and I own and operate 
dehydrating plants for vegetables, fruits, etc. 

The Chairman. Mr. Horst, first let me say that I would like 
you to state something of the effects and results of dehj^dration on 
vegetables and fruits; something about the desirability of using 
dehydration in preserving vegetables and fruits; something about 
the history of the process, describing the process itself, and make 
a statement of the expense connected with the building and equip- 
ment of plants, and so forth. 

Mr. Horst. The drying of A^egetables is a very old proposition. 
It was supplanted something like 30 or 40 years ago by the can- 
ning industry, and very little attention was paid to the question of 
drying of vegetables. The Boer war, and the Alaska excitement of 
1898, somewhat revived the industry, and a great amount of vege- 
tables were dried at that time, though the process was rather crude, 
but crude as it was it was successful, and the products were used 
then. What was left over, for instance, from the Boer war was 
successfully used in the present war by the British Government, and 
that has been after the lapse of a period of about 18 years ; and I cite 
that to show the keeping quality of the dried vegetables. 

Since that time, and particularly within the last six or eight 
months, there has been a great deal of experimental work done on 
the subject of the drying of vegetables, and up to the present time 
the work has gone along so far that the product to-day, in my 
opinion, is fully equal when cooked to the fresh product, as one gets 
it in the city, taking, of course, into consideration that vegetables, 
before they reach the consumer, have undergone quite a delay in han- 
dling, shipping, and rehandling, and they become aged by time ; and 
in keeping fresh vegetables, say, from the harvest time to the con- 
suming time in the middle of the winter is a long time, during which 
the vegetables more or less depreciate. The dehydrating process 
takes that vegetable fresh from the farm, immediately dries it, and 
dries it in such a way that substantially the freshness of the farm is 



DEHYDRATION OP FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

preserved; and in my opinion and in the opinion also of the very 
finest hotels of the United States, who have made extensive trials of 
these recently made products, they are fully as good as -fresh veg- 
etables. 

I have an abundance of letters here from a number of the finest 
ht)tels in the country — for instance, the Ritz-Carlton, of New York, 
and the Willard, of Washington, who have tried out the product. A 
number of our hotels in San Francisco are using dried vegetables in 
place of fresh vegetables, where they have the fresh vegetables the 
year around. 

The Chairman. Will you put those in the record? 

Mr. HoRST. I will, with pleasure. 

(The letters referred to by Mr. Horst are here printed in full as 
follows:) 

Department of Ageiculttire, 

BuEEATj OF Chemistry, 
Washington, D. C, January 25, 1918. 
Mr. E. Clemens Hoest, 

San Francisco, Cal.: 

Deab Sie : In response to your request for an opinion as to tlie value of dried 
vegetables, will state that we have been investigating this subject for a number 
of months, and find that nearly all vegetables and fruits can be dried success- 
fully if the quality of the raw material and the methods of preparing the 
material for drying, the drying, and the packing of the material after drying 
ai'e satisfactory. Products can be obtained which retain their distinctive 
properties. 

The saving in containers and freight effected by drying, combined with the 
attractiveness of the dried products, makes us realize that we have here an 
industry of importance and value. 
Respectfully, 

Cael L. Alsbeeg, Chief. 



Washington, D. C, Jamiary 15, 1918. 
Mr. E. Clemens Horst, 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Dear Sir : I am deeply interested in the industry of desiccated vegetables 
and fruits. I have seen the samples of the products which you are exhibiting, 
and I believe that the general use of such products by the general public would 
be highly beneficial. The rapidity at which the samples are dried and the low 
temperatures employed secure the full value of these products insofar as their 
vitamin' and antiscorbutic properties are concerned. 

Since vegetables and fruits contain from 80 to 95 per cent of water, the cost 
of transportation is enormously reduced by the use of dried products. At the 
same time, the dried products can be easily kept in cheap containers, and there 
is no danger of spoilage. In my opinion, these products are in a splendid form 
for use by our soldiers and sailors. They should be used in much larger quan- 
tities than vegetables are used at the present time for the purpose of preserving 
to a greater degree the liealth and vitality of those who eat them. 
Sincerely, yours, 

H. W. Wiley. 



The Biltmoee, 
Neic York, February 7, 1918. 
The E. Clemens Hoest Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Dear Sirs : We have used a number of your dried vegetables, including 
tomatoes, at the Biltmore, and they proved to be very satisfactory. 

The results convince us that dehydration is an excellent method for preserv- 
ing vegetables for use in all climates^ and particularly on account of the small 
space that is required for storage in shipment. 
Very truly, 

John McE. Bowman, President. 



6 DEHYDRATION OF FEUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Ritz-Oaelton Hotel, 
New York, Jammry 15, 1918. 
E. Clemens Hobst Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 

Gentlemen : After trying your different dried and powdered vegetables, I 

take pleasure in advising you that we found them in perfectly sound condition. 

If cooked properly, they are far superior in taste and more advantageous 

than preserved canned vegetables, as they retain all through an excellent flavor 

of fresh vegetables. 

I can safely say I see a fine opening on the market for your useful new 
products. 

Yovirs, vei"y truly, 

Albert Keller, General Manager. 

Hotel Manhattan, 
New York., February 11, 1918. 
The E. Clemens Hokst Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Dear Sir: After repeated trials of a variety of your dried vegetables, in- 
cluding tomatoes, at the Hotel Manhattan, we found them very satisfactory, and 
are convinced that vegetables preserved in this form are admirable for use when 
seasonable, fresh vegetables are not obtainable. 
Very truly, 

P. B. BoDEN, Vice President. 



The New Willard, 
Washington, D. C, December 14, 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Dear Sirs : Have tried both samples of dried tomatoes, which I have obtained 
of Mr. Paul Boden, and have found them excellent. 

Kindly advise where these goods can be obtained, also prices on same. 
Would also like to have directions for preparing dried vegetables, whether 
they should be soaked a length of time or not. 
The above information will be appreciated by, 
Yours, very truly, 

C. E. Schaefer, Steward. 



The Fairmont, 
San Francisco, Decemljer 3, 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen : I have sampled your dried vegetables, tomatoes, puree, etc., and 
have found them to be one of the very best I have ever tried, and I shall be 
pleased to recommend them at every opportunity. 
Very respectfully, 

Martin Ginder, Chef. 



[Extract.] 

St. Francis Hospital, 
San Francisco, Cal., December 22, J 917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co.. 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen : I am more than pleased with the samples sent to the hospital, 
and consider them a splendid article. 

I wish to add that the drying does not seem to change the flavor in tlie least. 
It seems impossible to believo that they are not a fresh article after they are 
cooked. 

Very truly, yours, 

Mabel B. Webb, Ho.spital Dietitiani. 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 7 

[Extract.] 

California State Board of Health, 

Bureau of Tuberculosis, 
8acra)ne)tto, Xoreinhcr 10, 1917. 
Mr. Clemens Horst, 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Dear Sir: I wish to thank you for tlie smnples that you sent lis, and to tell 
you that I have never tasted better tomato soup than we made from the 
powder. 

Yours, very sincerely, 

E. L. M. Tate-Thompson, Director. 



[Extract.} 

San Francisco Hospital, 
Sa.n Francisco, December Ui, 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co.. 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen: Referrinjr to sample of dried tomatoes recently submitted, beg 
to advise that our dietitian linds tliat same made a very excellent soup. It is 
our belief that this product would be particularly advantageous for use in the 
Army, and would solve, to a considerable extent, the problem of transportation 
of large quantities of food. 
Respectfully. 

R. G. Brodkick, Supcnntcndeut. 



[Extract.] 

Hotel St. Francis, 
San Francsico, December l.'i, 1917. 
Mr. E. Clemens Horst's .Tulienne and Brussel sprouts (dry) have the flavor 
and taste of fresh vegetable^-: after being prepared same way as fresh, and 
recommend them very higldv. 

Victor Hirtzlek. 



[Extract.] 

Hotel St. Francis, 
San Francisco, November 10, 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., 

San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen : For the first time in my experience as culinary chef and cook I 
have used one can of your dried powdered tomatoes and served it the whole 
day. I can only say one word — " excellent." 
Ydiirs, very truly, 

Victor Hirtzler. 



[Extract.] 



Palace Hotel, 
San Francisco, Cal., November 23, 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., 

. San Francisco, Cal. 
Gentlemen : I have given your tomato preparation, both the dried as well 
as the powdered forms, a good trial and am glad to state that your products 
are fine. They may be used with very good results in all such dishes where 
tomatoes are used. 
Wishing you the very best success, I am, 
Very truly, 

E. BURGENNINTER, 

Chef, Palace Hotel. 



8 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

[Extract.] 

San Francisco, December 15, 1917. 
Mr. E. Clemens Horst, City. 

Dear Sir: We are pleased to advise you that we sampled the dried Julienne 
vegetables and prepared very palatable vegetable soup from same. 
Very respectfully, 

TeCHAU TA^•ERN Co., 

A. C. Morrison, Manager. 



San Francisco, November 21, 1917. 
Messrs. E. Clemens Horst Co., 

Sail Francisco, Cat. 
Dear Sirs : I have tried your tomato dry powder in our kitchen and have 
found it very satisfactory. Have no doubt that it would be very" useful and 
economical. 

Very truly, yours, 

Tait-Zinkand Cafe, 
By G. MiTHAN, Chef. 



Clift Hotel, 
San Francisco, December 1-5. 1917. 
Mr. E. Clemens Horst, 

San Francisco. 
Dear Sir: In reply to your communication of- the 14th. will say tlie .Tulieime 
soup mixture you sent us makes exceptionally good soup, so mucli so that we are 
interested in the other articles you have on the market, and have instructed our 
buying steward, Mr. Barta, to get in touch with you. 
Yours, very truly, 

H. S. Ward, Assistant M(nmgrr. 



[Extract.] 

San Francisco, Dcccmher 17, l'>17. 

Mr. E. Clemens Horst, 

San Francisco, Gal. 
Dear Sir: Replying to yours of tlie 14th instant, we beg to advi.se that we 
have to-day cooked the .Julienne you wished us to test and find it excellent in 
every respect. 

Y'ours, very truly, 

San Francisco Commercial Ci.im. 
Prosper Reiter, Manager. 



The Olympic Club, 
Snn Francisco, December 28. 1917. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., • 

San Francisco. Cat. 
Gentlemen : We received your sample of Julienne soup mixture tlie early 
part of the month and can particularly reconunend same. The vegetables are 
also the finest we have ever tried, and. with proper handling, they seem to 
retain the flavor and appearance of the fresh vegetables. 
Yours, truly, 

J. H. NicoLL, Snpcrintcnflcnt of Serrice. 



McKinley Orphanage. 
San Fra)icisco. .faniiarji 7.5, 191S. 
E. Clemens Horst Co., 

San Francisco. 

Dear Sir: We received the sample of your dried .soup vegetables. We have 
used the sample and find it excellent — .iust as good as fresh vegetables. A little 
later on we will get in a supply of your dried vegetables. 
Yours, truly, 

Lillian R. Courneen, 
PerE. NiELD. 



DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 9 

,, ^ ^^ ., San Francisco, January 9, 191S. 

K. Clemens Hokst Co., !San Francisco. 

Gentlemen: We received your letter, together with sample of voiir dried 
vegetables. We tried them at your siigsestion, and we want to sa\' that we 
tound them very satisfactory; the flavor was full delicious, with no troul)le 
to prepare. If they can be supplied at the same price as fresh vegetables or 
very near it, we should think they would l)e a wonderful addition to Army 
. Aavy, and any camps ; also, a great solution for the use of overproduction in 
the country. One reads of boatloads of \egetables dumped in the bav for no 
other reason than to keep up the prices. Why not drv them? Thev" are not 
I ottered to charity, I notice, when the markets are glutted. 

llianking you for your favor in l)ringing these vegetables to our notice, and 
wishmg you all success, • 

Yours, very truly. 

California Home for Girls, 
Arnette Blackbitrne, 

E.rccittire Secretary. 

The Stratford Hotel, 

1, ,, ^^ . Chicacfo, .Tanuary 23, 1918. 

P-i. Clement Hoest Co., 

San Franci^TO. Cal. 
Gentlemen : After having given your dry vegetables a thorough trial, I am 
l)leased to state to you that they are very satisfactory, and as soon as vou have 
them m quantities so that they will be put on the market, will vou please send 
me a price list, and I shall be glad to give you an order. 

I find that the flavor is much fresher after they have been prepared than that 
<>t canned goods, and it is much easier to keep and to store 
Yours, respectfully, 

G. A. RissER, CJief. 
Mr. HoRST. The testimonials include practically all the highest- 
class hotels, hospitals, and ckibs in San Francisco. 'The recommenda- 
tions and use of dried vegetables by the best San Francisco trade is 
ot purticular importance, in that California always has fresh vege- 
tables. ^ 
So much for the question of quality. 

As to the subject of expense, of course the dried vegetable is not 
going to be as cheap as the fresh vegetable, because there is the cost 
of drying; that is. if you take the fresh vegetable in season and 
dry it you have the additional expense of drying the product. But 
when you take the vegetable out of season, then the dried product 
will be cheaper than the fresh product and far cheaper than the 
canned goods. For example, a case of canned tomatoes that costs 
roughly $4 — solid-packed tomatoes— two dozen tins, which weigh 
2 pounds each, the gross weight of the case being 60 pounds, 
and you have $4 for a case of tomatoes containing a total of not 
over 15 cents original cost of tomatoes. In other words, you have 
spent $3.85 to preserve 15 cents' worth of tomatoes. 

The same illustration holds good in a number of other products 
to the same extent, and to a lesser extent in all vegetables that are 
canned. The cost of dried vegetables is the cost of drying plus 
the cost of the fresh vegetables; in other words, in round jfigures, 
the cost of dried vegetables is less than double the original farm 
price of fresh vegetables, while with canning it takes approximately 
twenty times and often more than twenty times the cost of the fresh 
vegetable to make the cost of the canned product. 
^ The Chairman. That is 2 against 20. 

Mr. HoRST. Those are round figures. The figures vary accordino- 
to different products. " ... & 



I DEHYDKATIOlSr OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

On the question of weight and transportation, a 60-pound case 
of canned tomatoes, when the tomatoes are dried, gives you in round 
figures 2| pounds of the dried product. 

The same ilkistration roughly holds good of other vegetables, like 
spinach, and perhaps sj)routs, and all these other light-weight vege- 
tables that contain nuich nioistin'e say, something like 7.") to O-"* 
per cent moisture. 

When you have canned goods, you have to ship not only the 
canned goods but you have to ship an equal number of cars of 
empty cans to the cannery. For instance, 30 carloads of canned 
tomatoes would be equal to 1 carload of dried tomatoes. And you 
take your 30 carloads of canned tomatoes 

Senator Smith of Georgia. In weight, but not in bulk? 

Mr. HoRST. In equivalent quantity; that is, if you take the to- 
matoes of 30 carloads of canned tomatoes and dry them you will 
have 1 carload of dried tomatoes. 

■Senator Smith of Georgia. In bulk — in spac?, I mean — it would 
only occupy that much space ? 

Mr. HoRST. They will occupy that much spac?; yes, sir. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. That is what I mean — ^take no more 
space. 

Mr. HoRST. The contents of 30 carloads of canned tomatoes 



Senator Smith of Georgia (interposing). Can be put in 1 carload. 

Mr. Horst. Can be put in 1 carload: yes, sir. When you have 
your 30 carloads of canned tomatoes, you have to add on another 30 
cars for the movement of the empty cans from the can factory to 
the cannery. That makes 60 cars. 

Then, again, when you have in a carload of canned tomatoes 
10,000 pounds of tin and 14.000 pounds of lumber, a total of 24,000 
pounds. Then you have the moven>ent of the tin-making material 
from the mines to the tinplate factory, and the movement of the tin- 
plate from the tinplate factory to the tin-can factory ; and the move- 
ment of the logs to the sawmill and of the lumber to the box-shook 
factory, and the box shooks to the cannery, Avhich gives you a grand 
total of about 105 carloads as against 1 carload of dried product. 

Senator Eansdell. Is that one carload of dried product just as 
valuable as the other for human consumption ? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. And for that purpose I have brought plenty 
of samples that anj^body and everybody may try them. These prod- 
ucts have been tried now b}^ the Walter Reed Hospital here for the 
last few weeks since I have been here, and they were tried at the 
Washington Barracks within the last few days. They have been 
tried all along the line and every one certifies to the excellence of 
the product. All are agreed that they are better than canned goods, 
and most of them agree that they are as good as the fresh vegetables 
in season and better than fresh vegetables out of season. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. They are as good as the fresh vege- 
tables, unless you get the fresh vegetables right off the farm. If 
the fresh vegetables have to be delayed, as I understand jou, in 
transportation and distribution in a cit3\ from a farm some little 
distance away, then they are just as good as that kind of fresh vege- 
tables. 

Mr. Horst. That is exactly it. 



DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 11 

Senator Norris. What about the expense of the preparation of the 
plant, the drying machinery, etc. ? 

The Chairman. Senator Norris, would you mind, before you pro- 
ceed, allowing- me to continue for a moment. I want him to illus- 
trate the shipping in order to get the sequence. 

You were telling, Mr. Horst, about the expense of shipping to- 
matoes to Havre, France. 

Mr. HoRST. If you take this case of tomatoes, that would cost 
you, say, $4 in New York, by the time you shipped that case to 
Havre, at the present freight rates and at the present war-risk rates, 
it will make yonr deliveries in Havre, roughly, $7 per case,.while if 
3'ou take this product in the dried state you have got a correspond- 
ingly less freight rate according to the difference in bulk, which, as 
I say, is less than 5 per cent of the bulk. And by having a lower 
cost m the first place, you have a lower war-risk insurance, and the 
differences become greater the greater the distance that you move 
your product and the greater freight rates that you have to contend 
with. 

Just before I left California I saw a shipment of 50 pounds of 
green sprouts from California to some point East, where the express 
rate is 12 cents per pound. In order to ship these 50 pounds of green 
sprouts to the East they had to ship a 100-])ound cake of ice and 
pay the expressage at the rate of 12 cents per hundred pounds on the 
ice and the 50 pounds of sprouts, making 150 pounds at 12 cents a 
pound, which made $18, to ship this 50 pounds of sprouts. The whole 
50 ponnds could have been dried and shipped as 3 pounds by parcel 
post at a cost of 35 or 36 cents instead of $18 for expressage alone, 
and not counting the cost of the spronts and ice. So that the differ- 
ences in cost for vegetables, no matter how you figure them, is in 
favor of the dried product ; and, of course, when you start in figuring 
the movement of fresh products by express the figures are stagger- 
ing. When you take these sprouts and dry them in any place where 
they happen to have been groAvn, you dry them fresh the same day 
you pick them, and you have a product 'that is substantially equal 
to the fresh product, and a product that you know positively is never 
going to spoil, at least in a reasonable length of time. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Then, in shipping fresh vegetables 
there is a substantial loss, despite the care used, in the vegetables thai 
are not kept fresh. 

Mr. HoRST. It is estimated that of all of the vegetables grown in 
the United States, potatoes included, that there is about 40 or 50 per 
cent of the product that never reaches the dinner table; those are 
the losses between the farm and the consumer and by the consumer. 

Under the drying process there is no loss whatever. The entire 
product; that is, the sound portion, the edible portion, of the entire 
product is saved. 

The Chairman. You told me yesterday that something was saved 
in the drying process that was lost even in the canning process. 

Mr. HoRST. In the drying process you save the tops in the gardens 
and use them for feeding cattle, and' the peelings of the product you 
save in the drying process and use them for hog feed ; and you have 
them at those evaporating plants in sufficient quantity to raise hogs 
on the peelings and raise cattle on the tops. 



12 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

The Chaikmax, You did not quite get in another point — that is, 
that there is some kind of salts that are saved. 

Mr. HoEST. In all vegetables that are canned the valuable mineral 
salts are very largely leached out in the cans. That is the case in 
spinach, particularly. If you take spinach and put it in water and 
leave it in water two days you will turn the water absolutely black 
from the salts. In the canning process, or where the stuff remains in 
the cans on an average of six months from one season to the other, 
you have lost the very properties that you want to save, and although 
you may save in cooking you will put the entire contents into the pot 
when you are cooking it, still the salts have been lost to a very large 
extent. Y/hile in the drying process it is entirely saved. 

Senator Ransdell. How do you pack these different vegetables for 
preservation and shipment; for instance, tomatoes? 

Mr. HoRST. We pack them in carton boxes of pasteboard, which 
are sufficient for all vegetables, with perhaps the desirability of wrap- 
ping tomatoes and onions in the carton, and then having thin paraffin 
paper on the outside or inside in order to keep off the moisture. The 
tomatoes and the onions will take on moisture after dried, although 
they do not take on sufficient to hurt them. I have had onions and 
tomatoes exposed to the damp atmosphere of San Francisco for a 
period of two months' time without any injury whatever to the 
product, although they have taken on a great deal of moisture. They 
take on moisture just so far, and then they stop and they are not 
hurt. 

The Chairman. I do not laiow whether this process of drying 
frtiits and vegetables differs from the one used in Germany and 
whether it explains to some extent the wonderful power of endurance 
of the German people. I understand you laiow something about 
that. _ _ ' 

Mr. HoRST. The drying plants in Germany are estimated to be in 
number somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000. There were something 
like 850 plants before the war, and it is reported — how reliably I do 
not know — that they now have close on to 2,000 plants, the purpose 
being, of course, to save everything. 

The Chairman. And the potatoes^-how extensively do they dry 
those ? 

Mr. HoRST. The quantity of potatoes dried in Germany for the last 
year of which there is official record by our Government is 800,000,000 
bushels, which is more than twice the quantity of potatoes that are 
raised in the United States per annum; and figuring it on a per 
capita basis it is seven times as many potatoes as we raise. On top 
of that quantity, of course, Germany raises a very large additional 
amount of potatoes. Their crop in 1915, according to our Govern- 
ment Yearbook, was, in round figures, 2,000,000,000 bushels, as against 
350,000,000 bushels in our country. 

The Chairman. Those are Irish potatoes? 

Mr. HoRST. Those are Irish potatoes. 

The Chairman. Does this process preserve sweet potatoes equally 
as well as Irish potatoes? 

Mr. HoRST. This process will preserve sweet potatoes and Irish 
potatoes, and all other products, equally well. 

Senator Ransdell. Are you going to tell us how to do that? 



DEHYDEATIOISr OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 13 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir; I am going to tell you everything I know 
about it. 

The process of doing this is very simple. It involves no patents 
whatever — that is, the process itself involves no patent. There are 
minor features of it, perhaps, affecting the cost of operation that 
are covered by patents, but they can be utterly ignored, as they are 
of no value whatever in the general proposition. The business is 
very simple; there is no secret about it. The sum and substance of 
the proposition is to drj^ the product quickly, and not too quickly, 
and to use only air in doing it. And any plant by Avhich the air is 
run through the product in sufficient quantities will dry the product 
in proportion to the water-carrjdng capacity of the air that is passed 
through the product. Iii other words, if you take air at ordinary 
humidity, say, about T5 per cent, there is the 25 per cent left for 
water-carrjdng ability of the air, and at low temperature that water- 
carrying capacity is ver}^ small, and you would have to drive enor- 
mous quantities of air through the product, while by raising the 
temperature to, say, 130*^, 140°, or 150°, you do absolutely no injury 
to the product and you greatly increase the drying capacity of the 
air. In other words, say, at 150° you dry roughly about 10 times as 
fast as with air at 80°! I have not those figures in my mind, but I 
have a memorandum here in my pocket from which I can get the 
figures, if you care to have them. 

Senator Ransdell. Then there is a drying machine of some kind 
that has to be used? 

Mr. HoEST. You may call it a macliine. It is simply a plant on 
which you lay your product on a tray and blow air through it. 

Senator Ransdell. Practically, if I wanted to use it on my farm, 
what would I have to do ? 

Mr. HoEST. You would have to get a blower and a steam coil and 
a boiler, and heat the steam coil, and pipes to lead the air from the 
blower into the room in which the products are contained. 

Senator Ransdell. You have a closed room to put them in. 

Mr. HoRST. You would have a closed room to put them in, and 
by doing it on that plan, and by doing it quickly you avoid the 
oxidization of the product ; you retain the original freshness in color 
or substantially so, and you do your drying without the use of anji 
sulphur or preservative. These samples that are on the table here 
are all the natural products without anything on them, and a product 
that anybody can turn out equally well after he has had a very short 
course of training. 

Senator Ransdell. What would be the cost of the simplest mecha- 
nism or outfit that you could get up ? 

Mr. HoEST. You can get up a home dryer with which you can dry 
celery tips and your odds and ends around the house. The Depart- 
ment of Agriculture has been working on it ; = they have the plans, 
and they know the cost better than I do. But it can not be more 
than $20, I suppose. Of course you have not much capacity with 
such an outfit. For practical business — that is, to run drying on a 
scale such as it ought to be done in this country — you will need large 
plants, and those plants ought to be distributed throughout the 
Unitecl States in the agricultural districts to arrange for the different 
products. 



14 DEHYDRATIOX OF FRUITS AXD VEGETABLES. 

Senator Smith, of Georgia. Does it require a separate plant for 
each product? 

Mr. HoKST. Oh, no; one phmt does everything: the same plant 
that dries tomatoes also dries potatoes. 

Senator Ransdell. You mean community plants? 

Mr. HoRST. You can call them community plants, so long as you 
have the plant, communit}^ individual or corporation. 

The Chairman. What would be the cost of an economical plant 
for uses such as you have described ? 

Mr. HoRST. You can put up a substantial plant all the way from 
$5,000 to $50,000. Of course eveiything depends upon the kind of 
a structure you are going to build to dry in, and if you make join- 
drying building brick you are going to have a much lower cost of 
operation than if you make it of frame, because jour brick build- 
ing will save 3^our heat that you would otherwise lose in the frame 
building; and the other things depend upon the price you are 
paying for your fans and the steam coils. 

Senator Norris. The steam coils are to heat the air? 

Mr. HoRST. They are to heat the air. 

The Chairman. And then you must have steam poAver to operate 
the fans ? 

Mr. HoRST. We must have jDower to operate the fans. An auto- 
mobile will do, or a little motor will do it. In our plant we use a 
boiler for making steam. We run the steam through the steam coil, 
and then we use electric power for operating the fan. 

Senator Norris. It would not take much power to operate the fan ? 

Mr. HoRST. It would not. 

Senator Norris. Then you have to ha^e a place where the air 
goes in? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. A place for it to come out, and passing through 
the building it goes over the fruit. 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. That is the whole thing? 

Mr. HoRST. That is the whole idea. 

Senator Eansdell. You have got to heat that air somewhere? 

Mr. HoRST. You heat the air by passing it over the steam coil, and 
the whole principle is to heat the air so you do not heat it and lose it. 

Senator Norris. But the heating is outside of the building that 
has got the fruit in it, I suppose, is it not? 

Mr. HoRST. The heating plant may be either inside or outside the 
building. 

Senator Norris. And the fan is put right at the entrance, I pre- 
sume ? 

Mr. HoRST. Of course, you can supplement that, if you like, by put- 
ting further heating coils inside of the building if you want to do 
that. In other words, the higher the temperature you work at the 
quicker you drj. For every 24° increase in temperature you double 
the drying capacity of the air. 

Senator Norris. Tell us how long, in a properly equipped plant, 
it would take to dry potatoes. 

Mr. HoRST. You can dry sliced potatoes all the way from about 
two hours to eight hours, according to how thick you lay them and 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 15 

and according to the temperature of the air that you are using. 
Tomatoes we dry in about 7 to 10 hours. 

Senator Eansdell. You slice them, I suppose. 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Eansdell. All vegetables have to be sliced up, or practi- 
cally all of them? 

Mr. HoR8i\ You have to slice your products in order to dry the 
vegetables on the inside and core. If you leave a wet place in the 
inside of the vei^etable, then your vegetable is liable to spoil, and that 
lias been the mistake of the past, before that was fully understood, 
that the inside of the vegetables — that is, the core — -has to be dried, 
and when the core is not dried your vegetable will spoil, and when 
the core is dried you can not spoil it afterwards. 

The Chairiman. You were telling me about some saving in the 
drying of apples under this process, as compared with the old process. 

Mr. HoRST. There is a great saving in the drying of apples, in this 
])articuhu- respect, that you get much more for the apples that are 
dried by the indoor process than you do for apples which are dried 
by the outdoor process, and in that way you get your saving. 

The Chairman. Was there not some bleaching process that you 
told me about? 

Mr. HoRST. AVhenever you dry anything in tlie open air, likt 
peaches, pears, or apples, and lay the stu.ff on traj^s, the drying 
process is so slow, no matter how hot the sun may be, that the out- 
side of the fruit becomes oxidized, and during the exposure there 
are flies and bugs and dust and dirt which get on it and damage 
the product more or less. 

In order to make the product presentable, it is imperative to bleach 
it. or you can not dispose of it, the way people look at goods now- 
adays. The sulplnn- bleaching proposition will all be done away 
with by this dehydrating process, because there is no need of sulphur, 
since you get your first-class j^roduct without its use. The danger 
of sulphTir is iK.-t so nuTch in the sulphurous acid that is formed in 
the process of the burning of the sulphur, the sulphur smoke. Sul- 
pliiu" smoke coming in contact with the food makes sulphnrous acid, 
and then that is the bleaching agent. Bad as that is, the real 
trouble is that it is vei'v diiUcult to get sulphur that- is free from 
arsenic, and when yon burn sulphur under fruit the arsenic burns 
along with the sulphur, and that is immediately precipitated when 
it hits anything wet. 

Tlie first product it hits when the smoke is cooled, wherever that 
happens to be, the arsenic is precipitated, and when this arsenic is 
precipitated on the lower layers of the fruit, and if perchance some- 
body eats the lower layers and gets a little too much arsenic, there 
is a funeral in the family. The amount of arsenic, for instance, in 
Hakodate sulphur and Sicilian sulphur runs as high as 1 part of 
arsenic to 1,500 parts of sulphur. 

Senator Eansdell. How it is with respect to the Louisiana sul- 
phur ? 

Mr. HoRST. Louisiana sulphur is considered pure; that is, free 
from arsenic. So is the Nevada sulphur, but we never get any of the 
Nevada sulphur, nor do we ever get any of the Louisiana sulphur 
out in our part of the country, and the only sulphurs used are the 



16 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Japanese sulphurs. There is one sulphur in Japan, the Bongo, 
that is comparatively free from arsenic. But it all has arsenic in it, 
even after it has been refined, and to my mind too much of it. 

The Chairman. Can .you tell us what has been the experience of 
the English Government with reference to the number of drying 
operations they have in use? 

Mr. HoRST. The official records that come through our Food Ad- 
ministration — any they give the information as coming through our 
War Department — is to the effect that England uses for its armies 
100 pounds of dried vegetables for 6,000 portions of vegetable soup, 
and that they feed the vegetable soup to the soldiers five or six days 
a week, and with. that ration they keep them in first-class health. 
The British Government has bought in Canada since the war com- 
menced, in round figures, 44,000,000 pounds of mixed dried vege- 
tables and potatoes. On top of that they have secured large sup- 
plies in England, where they have converted many of the hop kilns 
into vegetable drying plants, and I believe they have put up other 
vegetable drying plants. 

Senator Norris. Take an apple. I suppose we are all more or less 
familiar with dried apples. Will your process dry an apple so that 
it would be as good as a fresh apple? 

Mr, HoRST. It wdll dry it so that it will be as good as a fresh apple 
cooked. I do not say that any product that is dried and soaked in 
water again is going to be as good as fresh, if eaten uncooked. 

Senator Norris. How will it compare with the dried apple we are 
all familiar with, that we used to dry in the sun? 

Mr. HoRST. It will be far better than a dried apple that has been 
dried in the sun, because the apple drying in the sun takes too long 
a time to dry and becomes damaged in the too slow drying. 

Senator Eansdell. Will the apple dried by this process make prac- 
tically as good apple pies as the fresh apple ? 

Mr. HoRST. Substantially as good ; yes. The apples dried by this 
process bring in the wholesale market 3 cents a pound more than 
apples dried in the sun, and when I left San Francisco one of the 
largest stores in that city, the Emporium, a department store, was 
selling Oregon dried apples, dried by this same process or similar to 
this process, and getting 45 cents a pound for them in 1-pound car- 
tons as against the wholesale price of about 16 cents for the ordinary 
dried apple. 

Senator Norris. One pound of those dried apples would be equiva- 
lent to about how many pounds of fresh apples? 

Mr. HoRST. I have not the conversion figures in my mind now on 
apples. I have been working almost entirely upon vegetables, and I 
can give you almost all the conversions on vegetables offhand. 

Senator Ransdell. Are there any grocery stores in Washing-ton 
handling these dried products ? 

Mr. HoRST. No, sir ; not yet. The handling of the products is the 
difficult part of the situation, and it is for that reason I was asked 
to come on to Washington to try to interest the Government in two 
things: First, for our Army to adopt dried vegetables, and, second, 
lor our food authorities to make a propaganda so that the people will 
know what the products are; that is, to make whatever public tests 
are necessary to demonstrate the value of the product, and then have 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 17 

the information o-o officiall}^ before the public, so that tlie public will 
ask for it and so the farmers will raise the raw material necessary, 
and on that basis it will mean millions upon millions of tons increased 
food production b}^ way of vegetables. 

The Chairman. By this process there are no perishable products 
lost? 

Mr. HoRST. No, sir. The highly perishable products are converted 
into nonperishable products. 

Senator Kansdell. No expensive glass vessels are required to hold 
them ? 

Mr. HoRST. No glass, no cans; pasteboard is all that is needed. 

Senator Ransdell. And pasteboard is made of waste products 
from the top of trees that would otherwise be thrown away ? 

Mr. HoRST. I do not know 

Senator Ransdell (interposing). It can be made of that material. 

Mr. HoRST. I understand it is made of cheap wood pulp. 

Senator Gronna. Do the vegetables preserved by this process lose 
their flavor? 

Mr. HoRST. Vegetables will not lose their flavor as compared with 
cooked vegetables. If you take a raw vegetable, dry it, and then 
soak it — that is, put the water back in it — it is not going to taste, 
uncooked, the same as the fresh fruit or vegetable does before dried. 
But if you take the two products and cook them, then you have the 
dried product at least as good as the fresh product, iniless, per 
chance, you take your fresh product directly on the farm and eat 
it on the farm. You get a crispiness and snappiness on the farm 
that you do not get in the city. 

Senator Gronna. In this tremendous reduction of potatoes, for 
instance, which contain a high percentage of alcohol, are any of those 
ingredients lost? 

Mr. HoRST. There is absolutely nothing lost. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. All the alcohol, all the liquid, in the 
potato is lost by evaporation. 

Mr. HoRST. You have got Dr. Alsberg here and I would be afraid 
to say anything about chemical action in his presence, but it is my 
impression that alcohol is not formed in the potato at the time you 
are using the potato, and in the drying process the only thing that 
is taken out is the water, and the United States Department of 
Agriculture, Bulletin No. 841, I believe it is, states that in drying 
vegetables water is all that is taken out, and that flavor, texture, and 
food value are unimpaired. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. The water is withdrawn then before 
the process of producing alcohol from the potato takes place? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. That is true of every vegetable, is it not ? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. You could get the alcohol out of them, but if you 
dry the potatoes when fresh you would dry them before they hap- 
pened to be any alcohol in them ? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Gronna. My question, of course, was really this : Has the 
ingredient, as I call it, which makes the alcohol, become lost in drying 
the potato? 

42291—18 2 



18 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Mr. HoRST. No, sir. You lost absolutely nothing but water, and 
you can put the Avater back, but in putting it back, as I say, if j'ou 
are going to compare a vegetable with the water put back with the 
same vegetable before it was dried, and eat the thing raw, you are 
bound to be disappointed; but if you eat one cooked and the other 
cooked you will like one just as well as the other, unless you get the 
one fresh at the farm. 

Senator Ransdell. I am interested to know whether or not you 
could still use these dried vegetables to make alcohol, if you desired? 

Mr. HoEST. I believe they use it in Germany to a large extent that 
way, but I do not know. 

Senator Eansdell. I imagine so, from what you said. 

Senator Grokxa. I am intensely interested in that, and I think the 
material out of which the alcohol is made is the food product. I 
think that is conceded, is it not? 

Mr. HoRST. That is a question, I am sorry to say, which is over 
my head. 

Senator Gronna. What I was about to say is this: If it should ap- 
pear that this Aery material out of which you could make alcohol dis- 
appears I think that AA^ould be a tremendous loss in food value. 

The Chairman. Mr. Horst, I wish you would jBle with your state- 
ment these conversion figures, or ratios, the weight of the fresh vege- 
table as compared with the dried vegetable. 

Mr. HoRST. I can give them to you in round figures. For instance, 
potatoes, about 6 to 1 ; cabbage, about 20 to 1 ; tomatoes, about 20 to 
1 ; spinach, about 18 to 1 ; turnips, 14 to 1 ; carrots, about 9 to 1. That 
giA^es you the general relation. 

Senator Norris. That is bulk? 

Mr. Horst. In aa- eight; and in cubic measurements you can take 
your dried products and compress them so that the question of bulk 
is entirely eliminated. We press cabbage, onions, spinach, and toma- 
toes. I have a little brick of tomatoes here, Avhich weighs seven 
ounces, and fiAe of those little bricks is equal to a 60-pound case of 
canned tomatoes ; and I have the chemist's report on that quantitative 
analysis to confirm those figures. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Will you state Avhat your interest in 
the matter is, AA'hat your connection with the proposition is, barring 
the interest we all haA^e? 

Mr. HoRST. I Avill tell you my interest frankly. I have been in the 
hop-growing business on the Pacific coast for the last 25 years and 
upward, and I have raised as many as 28,000 bales of hops a J^ear, 
which is roughly several hundred times as many as the average hop 
grower raises, and the hop business has declined. The British Gov- 
ernment has put an embargo on the shipment of hops, and 35 per cent 
of the hops used to go to England, and the American brewing busi- 
ness has declined, and as a result there are more hops on hand than 
people want, and I have a large number of hop kilns and farming- 
lands around these hop kilns. There are in the hands of other 
farmers on the Pacific coast approximately 2,500 hop kilns, con- 
structed on a different plan from mine, but they can be adapted to my 
plans. All of these hop fields are in the A'ery richest agricultural dis- 
ti'.cts, and if I could find another industry for the hop grower it 
would be very good for the entire Pacific coast and it would be good 



DEHYDRATION OF FEUITS AND VEGETABLES. 19 

for the country, because the same principle that could be worked from 
the Pacific coast can be worked in the East, South, and everywhere 
else in the United States. 

Now, my desire is to make use of my hop kilns and make use of 
my lands, and grow vegetables; and unless the Government takes an 
interest in the proposition there is no chance of this industry develop- 
ing, because of the fact that it is not a patented process and it is not a 
secret process. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. You have no financial interest in any 
process for this purpose ? 

Mr. HoRST. Absolutel}' none. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. It is just your suggestion that the 
Government buj- it in the interest of the public generally, without 
compensation to anybody, as an incident to trying it? 

Mr. HoRST. That is exactly it. In fact, I am making the fight 
against a number of people who have started in now to take this 
general proposition of dehydration and try to make personal prop- 
erty of it and make patented claims on it in order to float stock and 
in order to queer the whole business before the country, but in any 
publicitj' given to this proposition it ought to be made perfectly 
plain that it is a proposition open to all and that an3^body can do it. 
The benefit I. am personally going to get out of it is that I am going 
to have better use of my lands than by raising hops. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. In otheV words, you would make a 
market for the product you have not got now. 

Mr. Horst, Yes, sir. If we tried to create a market for these 
products by advertising it would cost at least $5,000,000 to develop 
a dried fruit and vegetable product market to any substantial extent 
within two or three years, while if our Government takes hold of it 
and advertises it along the line that the product is good — and they 
can find out overnight that it is good — and if then the Government 
makes a very simple proclamation you will have every housewife 
wanting the product, and when every housewife wants products you 
can start in. 

Senator Eansdell. The consumer is going to derive a wonderful 
benefit from the cheapness of it ? 

Mr. HoRST. The consumer gets the benefit from the cheapness; 
the farmer gets the benefit from the better utilization of his lands. 
For instance, to-day the growing of vegetables is confined, generally 
speaking, to within '2 miles of a city. When you get 3 miles away 
from a city you do not see any vegetable farms. I was on a little 
motoring trip of some to or three hundred miles in southern Cali- 
fornia last December, and when we would get 3 miles from a town 
you would see the most ]}eautiful orange groves and the ground 
just as clean as a whistle and not a thing being grown between the 
trees, if grown even between the .young trees, and that land lies ab- 
solutely idle and will not be of any benefit for many years, although 
every inch of that land could be put into vegetables and be a benefit 
to the whole country if there was an outlet for the product. But 
under present conditions if they grow vegetables on the land and have 
to rely on selling the product fresh or selling it to the canneries, 
there is a slump in the market and the stuff rots and the farmer is dis- 
couraged. Under this plan driers can be started by the farmers 



20 DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

themselves or by associations of fanners in different parts of the 
country; all that land can be put into crops to the benefit of the 
whole countr}^ 

Senator Eansdell. If your tlieory is correct and those products 
could be put in use, there would be a wonderful reduction in the cost 
of living? 

Mr. HoRST. Not only a reduction in the cost of living, but an im- 
provement in the health of the people by eating more vegetables. 
As Dr. Wiley told me a few days ago, the people of this country 
do not eat enough vegetable food to keej) them in best health, and 
especially in the wintertime when the vegetables are high or prac- 
tically none available. 

Senator Kansdell. I took a sample of the dried tomatoes from the 
committee room and had my wife make tomato soup from the 
powder and it was very good, we thought, but the idea struck me 
that while that would work with a vegetable that your were going 
to make soup of, for example^ take cauliflower or cabbage, where 
you do not desire to use it in soup, but to eat the vegetable itself, 
how would you bring the vegetable back so that you will be eating 
cabbage ? 

Mr. HoEST. " The proof of the pudding is in the eating." We have 
. served cabbage to 500 — or something like 500 — men at the Walter 
Reed Hospital, and I do not know whether they serve it full por- 
tions, but they serve something like 4 or 5 pounds of dried cabbage 
for the whole 500 men, and the cabbage was pronounced excellent b^^ 
all the men. 

Senator Nokeis. When that cauliflower in the glass here [indi- 
cating the glass on committee table] has been soaked up, it will 
i_ ^^i-never come back again to as large a head as it was originally? 
-^ „ Mr. HoRST. Those are only little parts of the head; that is not the 
' Avhole head. 

Senator Noeeis. Take a cabbage head. Would you drj^ the whole 
heafl or have to cut it up ? 

Mr. HoEST. You could not dry the whole head. 

Senator Noebis. You would cut it up? 

Mr. HoRST. We would cut it up. 

Senator Noreis. And make it into a kind of cabbage slaw? 

Mr. HoEST. You can slice or split up the cabbage head. You have 
got to make the bulk small enough so that you can dry the inside 
part. Wherever you reach the point where the drying stops so that 
you can not dry the inside, you must stop. You must make your 
product small enough so that the inside can be dried. But that gives 
you plenty of latitude to take care of everything. . 

The Chaieman. Will you put in your statement along with the let- 
ters from the Ritz Carlton and Willard Hotel the letter from the 
Walter Reed Hospital, when you get that later ? 

Mr. HoRST. It is not available at the Walter Reed, but the oral re- 
port from the Walter Reed Hospital and the Washington Barracks 
was that the products are excellent. 

The Chaieman. We are very much obliged to you, Mr. Horst. 

Senator Ransdell. This is the most profoundly interesting thing 
we have had before this committee for our consideration since I have 
been a member of it. If the results are as Mr. Horst says, it is per- 
fectly remarkable. 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 21 

The Chairman. If this process is equal to its promise, perishable 
products will be made nonperishable, and the summer will be 
made perpetual and we will eliminate an enormous amount of waste. 

The Chairman. We will now hear Mr. Sweet. 

STATEMENT OF MR. LOU D. SWEET, UNITED STATES FOOD ADMIN- 
ISTRATION, WASHINGTON, D. C. 

The Chairman. Please state your name, Mr. Sweet? 

Mr. Sweet. Lou D. Sweet. 

The Chairman. And your present address. 

Mr. Sweet. Food Administration Building, Washington, D. C. 

The Chairman. We will be glad to hear any statement on your 
part concerning this process of dehydration of fruits and vegetables, 
in your own way. You are at liberty to speak as appeals to you. 

Mr. Sweet. I was asked by Mr. Hoover in July to take up the sub- 
ject of dehydrated vegetables and fruits. I began to collate the in- 
formation I could get a hold of, first, from the United States Agri- 
cultural Department, through the kindness of Dr. Alsberg, Dr. Gore, 
and Prof. Corbett, and others, from whom I learned much, as Mr. 
Horst has told you, about the English Government, particularl}^, 
ordering the soup product for the Army in South Africa during the 
Boer war. That was made of about 40 per cent potatoes, 20 per 
cent carrots, 20 per cent turnips, 10 per cent cabbage, and 10 per 
cent onions, drjdng 100 pounds of the raw to about 15 pounds of 
the dried. That was shipped to them in large quantities. Their 
statement was that 100 pounds of the dried would make a soup 
ration for about 6,000 soldiers, and five or six rations a week would 
keep them in health. The Boer war closed suddenly and left him 
with about 30,000 pounds of the products on hand. There was no 
demand for it in Canada or the United States. He put it into bar- 
rels sealed it up with paraffin and fifteen years, three months, and 
some days after that, or after this present war had started, England 
sent him another order. He opened those barrels and it looked all 
right, and he shipped it and it proved all right. 

Since that time the Graham Products Co." (Ltd.), at Belleville, 
Ontario; the Chilliwack Operating Co., at Chilliwack, British 
Columbia, and the Dominion Products Co., of Vancouver, British 
Columbia, have shipped up until about the 1st of December between 
10,000,000 and 50,000,000 pounds of dried products, about 60 per 
cent of it in the form of this soup product they call " Julienne " and 
about 10 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. They require that this 
product be put up in 15-pound tins, two tins to a case, and a good 
strong case made for it, as they use it in all parts of the world where 
they have their armies. 

They placed an order in November with the Dominion Products 
Co. (Ltd.) for 1,000 tons, about 60 per cent of the soup product and 
about 10 per cent of the dried sliced potatoes. In the LTnited States 
we found that the American Dehydrating Co., at Waukesha, Wis., 
was one of the earlier companies making a product for the Hudson 
Bay people, away up north, where their men needed vegetables to 
keep them healthy; next came the Wittenberg-King Co., of Portland, 
Oreg. The Alaska boom started them making it up there. They 



22 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

make a very good product, shipping their products mostly to Alaska. 
During the last six months there has been a wonderful awakening in 
this country on dehydration- The Bureau of Chemistry, under 
Dr. Alsberg and Dr. Gore, has made exhaustive study and tests of it. 
There have been a number of patents granted to various people. 
Some have been promoted, selling people their patent processes. 
Little plants have started here and there, some of them making a 
fairly good product and some not so very good. But during the past 
five or six months there have been a number — some two or three — 
that have made a product comparable to the fresh product. I mean 
by that that as we take the fresh vegetables from the garden and 
prepare them for our meal we have a delicious product, while if it 
is shipped from the place Avhere raised into the city, an average of 
two or three days transpires probably before people use it, and those 
vegetables are not what we w^ould consider fresh and delicious vege- 
tables. The del\ydrated products, or the good products to-day. after 
they have been dried and all the water taken out of them, can be 
placed back in cold water and take on the moisture that they origi- 
nally contained, or nearl}^ that, and then be cooked, and we are unable 
to tell the difference betAveen those and the fresh vegetables. 

The Chairman. Would it not be possible, Mr. Sweet, in those 
markets of the city where there is a great deal of waste in perishable 
products to install these plants and save all of that? 

Mr. Sweet. Would it not be better for the plants to be erected 
where the products were grown and sent ro the cities in the manu- 
factured form ? 

The Chairman. Oh, undoubtedly ; that is the idea I ha'^e, and that 
is what I contemplated in the bill I have introduced but there is a 
great deal of waste in the big cit}^ markets in all our vegetables, and 
it occurred to me that j^ou might install those plants at the markets 
and work up what could not be sold. 

Mr. Sweet. The main point in fresh vegetables, as I see it, is that 
during the nonproductive season or winter season, with a dehydrated 
vegetable, the people of the United States could get a product equal 
to fresh vegetables, and they would be healthier, and I firmly believe 
that the dehydration of fruits and vegetables is one of the grandest 
developments that has come to the United States. 

Senator Eansdell. Have you made estimates as to the compara- 
tive cost of these dehydrated vegetables, with the ordinary canned 
vegetables, or vegetables in the form we usually get? 

Mr. Sweet. Oh, yes. 

Senator Eansdell. How would they compare ? 

Mr. Sweet, Just a moment 

Senator Eansdell (interposing). I am speaking now of the ulti- 
mate consumer. 

Mr. Sweet. Potatoes will dry down to about one-fifth to one-sixth, 
according to the quality of potato. The food in the potato is, of 
course, the starch, the protein, and the mineral salts. In the very 
high-class potato you will have a very high percentage of those in- 
gredients, and the poorer quality, of course, correspondingly less, 
and in the United States we have planted the cull potatoes, the little 
ones so long, have overcropped our lands so long, that our pro- 
duction per capita is the lowest of any country in the world raising 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 23 

potatoes, and the consumption per capita the lowest, because of the 
poor quality of our potatoes. 

Of our 442,500,000 bushels of potatoes, that the Government 
states we raised last year, they also figure that only about 32 per 
cent of that ever moves out of the country in Avhich raised. They 
also figure in Bulletin 47 that the consumption per capita of pota- 
toes in the United States is about 2.6 bushels per capita. Potato 
flour was made in Germany and shipped to this country prior to 
the war. We are now beginning to make some potato flour in the 
United States. Potato starch has been made in the ITnited States 
more or less from the cull potatoes, that being used by the manu- 
facturers for sizing of textiles, not an edible starch. The reduc- 
tion of dehydration of the weight of the various vegetables varies 
with their water "content, potatoes probably being from 100 pounds 
down to 20 or as low as 16 or IT pounds, while some of the other 
vegetables will dr}'- down to 8 pounds per hundred, according to 
their water content. You would lose the peeling in the dehydra- 
tion, but far less peeling by machinery than you would by hand. 
The food of the potato, a large percentage of it, lies in that portion 
next to the skin, and the potato that is smoothe, with the eyes flush, 
hj careful paring, would lose 5 to 15 per cent of the food ; if it is a 
deep-eyed, rough, irregular shaped potato, would lose 30 to 60 
per cent of the food, in the ordinary kitchen, paring, while in the 
paring by machinerj^ it is done with a centrifugal parer, lined with 
carborundum, which just wears the skin off. Dr. Gore, from the 
Government, can tell you more about the mechanical end of it. 

The product sold in Canada to the English Government, the potato 
price, put up in these packages at the seaboard, has run from 20 cenrs 
to 321^^ cents during the last three years; that is, in a large manufac- 
turing way. In the United States, from the estimates we have of the 
engineers who worked with us, we believe we are safe in making the 
statement of 15 cents a pound, mav be less than that, as compared to 
their 20 to 32^ cents. 

With the other vegetables, the cost of preparing them for the de 
hydration is about the same as in canning; the labor expense neces- 
sary to wash them, and peel them, and prepare them, and slice them 
ready for the drier. The drying is a simple process of temperature 
and humidity to gradualh^ get the water content out, and, of course, 
the packing is mechanical, in the lumber, the tin, or the carton, as it 
would prove better to do. 

Senator Ransdeix. Summarizing all you have said, what would you 
make the average cost of the potatoes dried, as compared with the 
fresh potato? 

Mr. Sweet. If you took 100 pounds of potatoes at $1.50 a hundred 
and got 20 jDounds dehydrated, the original cost would be $1.50 plus 
the labor of preparing it and drying it and boxing it, the details of 
which I do not know definitely. We have had it estiuiated by a num- 
ber of engineers. 

Senator Raxsdell. But that does not answer the question at all. 
These potatoes would not be worth anything like $1.50 out on the 
farm where dried in the wholesale way. I was speaking about the 
fellow in the city who used those potatoes and paid $1.50, whereas 
by this dehydrating process those potatoes are put up on the farm 
where they are worth practically nothing, wasted by rot. fed to hogs, 



24 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

or something of that sort, and I take it, if I understood Mr. Horst 
right, there Avoiild be an enormous saving to the ultimate consumer. 

Mr. Sweet. There is no question about it at all. 

The Chairman. There is an even greater saving in tomatoes and 
things of that sort, than potatoes ? 

Mr. Sweet. There will be a great saving in potatoes, because of the 
reduced waste from the tremendous loss we are having to-day in 
handling potatoes by deterioration. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. I understood you to say it cost 15 cents 
a pound average. 

Mr. Sweet. That is the figure, about, for the dried product ; that is 
what the dried product would cost. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. To change it from the green to the 
dried state? 

Mr. Sweet. Yes. 

. Senator S:\nTH of Geoi-gia. And then the additional cost would 
depend upon what was paid for the raw material? 

Mr. Sweet. Yes, sir. 

Senator S:mith of Georgia. What is the relative food value of the 
dried pound of the material before it was dried ? 

Mr. S^^'EET. I think Dr. Alsburg, Chief of our Bureau of Chem- 
istry, can better answer that than I can. From all I am able to find 
out about it, by eating them, as I have for some time, I can tell no 
difference between the good dehydrated products and the fresh prod- 
ucts. Dr. McCullen, of Johns Hopkins University, says that he finds 
them comparable to fi-esh vegetables, and he sees no reason why a,nj 
of the food values should be lost. His experiments with a number 
of the vegetables — cabbage and others — prove that they are as good 
as the fresh vegetables. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. His theory is that the pound of dried 
potatoes has as much food value as the potatoes from which the 
pound of dried p<y:atoes were produced? 

Mr. Sweet. True; yes, sir. 

The CiiATinrAN. And that enables you to distribute the whole 
perishable crop ovev the entire United States? 

Mr. Sweet. Now. it comes to the point of our Army, they realiz- 
ing now that they will need Aegetables abroad and can not obtain 
fresh vegetables for the summer months. 

Senator S:mith of Georgia. That is not a matter of expert testi- 
mony. We know as much about that as anybody. 

Mr. Sv/EET. You know as much about that as anybody, but the only 
point I was making was about the shipping capacity. 

Senator Simith of Georgia. We understand the shipping matter, 
too. What we do not know is, what it cost to produce this result 
and what the food ^•alue of the result is. 

The Chah^ian. I think he told that in your absence, about the 
English Government. 

Senator Smith of Geoj'gia. I heard that. If these potatoes have 
half the food value that the green potatoes have and at any reason- 
able cost they can bo dried, it is a perfectly clear proposition that 
the Government can not afford to wait to start drying. 

Senator Norris. I notice in these samples that the potato samples 
were cooked before they were dried. Is that the usual Avay of 
doing it? 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 25 

Mr. Saveet. a g-ood many of the processes we know abont blanch 
by steam, as they call it, to keep them from oxidizing- and turning 
dark. After they are pared and sliced, thej^ run them into a steam 
jacket, with steam pressure, and blanch them, and then go ahead 
with the drying ])rocess. You can. and they do turn out a product of 
potatoes, where they cook the potatoes, then rice them, and then 
dry the riced potatoes. 

iSenator Nokkis. There is a sample of that kind right here. 

Mr. Sweet. You can put that in hot water and in a very few 
minutes have as fine mashed potatoes as you can from fresh potatoes. 
With the dehydrated potato, as you would call it, you would have 
to put them back into the water and soak them up to their original 
shape and size and then go ahead and cook them. 

Senator Nokris. What I wanted to get at was, is there any practi- 
■cal advantage in cooking them before you dry them; is that more 
practical than to dry them without cooking them? I am moved to 
ask that question from the fact that I see on the samples of some of 
the vegetables that they were cooked before they were dried. 

IMr. Sweet. I take it, from a business standpoint, that the English 
Government, using them so long and using what we call the dehy- 
drated potato, that thev have proven to their satisfaction that that 
is the best for their needs. 

The Chairiniak. This experience, then, of using the left-over prod- 
ucts from the Boes War would indicate that it was almost indefinite? 

Mr. Sweet. I think so. Senator. I see no reason why it should not 
'kee]^ rather indefinitely. 

The Chairman. Thirty-six years as well as 18 years, and so on. 
Is there any other question that any Senator desires to ask Mr. 
Sweet? If not, we will hear Dr. Fairchild. I want to say, however, 
that we are very much obliged to Mr. Sweet for his statement. 

STATEMENT OF MR. DAVID FAIRCHILD, DEPARTMENT OF 
ACtRICULTTJRE. 

The Chairman. Doctor, kindly state your name. 

Mr. Fairchild. David Fairchild. 

The Chairman. What is your present address? 

Mr. Fairchild. Department of Agriculture. 

The Chairman. What is your official position in the department, 
Doctor ? 

Mr. Fairchhj). I have charge of the introduction of new food 
plants. 

The Chairman. The committee will be glad to hear you in your 
own wa3' discuss the subject of dehydrated fruits and vegetables. 

Mr. Fairchild. Last April I was requested by Assistant Secretary 
Vrooman to study tliis question from the angle which my own ex- 
perience in the introduction of new vegetables would enable me to 
give to it, namely, the ]5roblem of whether these dried vegetables 
would be acceptable to the people. The experience Avhich we have 
had in the introduction of such of these southern vegetables as the 
dasheen, has given me a chance, perhaps, to throw a little light, from 
a Government standpoint, on this general problem of the hmnan 
palate and its effect on our agriculture. I bring that matter up here 



26 DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

because it is involved in tliis question of dried vegetables. The diffi- 
cult}^ has always been in the introduction of a new food plant, that 
the growers of the plant could not advertise it ; that is, it did not pay 
them to advertise it. The advertising which had been done by farm- 
ers, which has paid largely, as I understand it, is after an industry 
through various vicissitudes and many years has become established, 
and the farmers can form a large organization and control in some 
measure -the output. 

When it comes to a new plant like the clasheen, the Government 
has had to do the advertising, and we have now, after these j^ears 
of experimenting, a crop of 30,000 bushels, which is nothing, of 
course, compared to what it could be, but it has been entirely done 
without any advertising on the part of the growers of this vegetable. 
That factor, it seems tc me, enters into this whole question of w^hat 
the Government should do with regard to dried vegetables, for, with 
all due respect to the testimony with regard to these things, they 
have the character to the popular mind of something that is novel, 
something that is new, and they are going to meet with that same 
difficulty, perhaps in a minor degree, that every new food has met. 
The study which I have made during these months has convinced 
me, however, that the reflection which we get from Europe with 
regard to the resistance of the people to the changing of their food 
habits does not apply wholly to this country. I have traveled in 
all of these countries that are now at Avar. I have considered for 
years whether it would be worth while to try to introduce new 
vegetables into those countries, and I have long ago made up my 
mind that no money inducement would persuade me to try the 
experiment in those countries, because of the conservatism of taste. 
So when the matter first came up and I discussed it very extensively 
with men who had been on the Belgian Commission, particularly 
Avith relation to the difficulties in introducing Indian corn and rice, 
I realized that Ave Avere in a different position from that which they 
were in on the other side. We haA^e introduced new foods. We haA^e 
introduced more ncAv foods into oUr menu in the last 25 years, I be- 
lieve, than they have in Europe in the last two centuries, and I think 
that these foods haA^e been introduced lai'gely Avithout much adA'er- 
tising — under the normal conditions of the public mind, skeptical, 
as it ahvajJ's is, toward the introduction of a new food, ^^^len 
you think of the successful introduction of sucli. a fruit as the grape- 
fruit, so sour that it made the lemon look like 30 cents— as the old 
grapefruit certainly did — when you realize that that fruit has not 
yet found its Avay into the European markets, you get some idea of 
what we Americans can do in this changing of our food habits. 

The introduction of these dehydrated A^egetables, as I said before, 
appears to offer less difficulty because of their cheapness. 

The Cii.MiniAN. Another thing. Doctor, it is a different form to 
Avhat they have been used to. It is not like a new and untried vege- 
table. 

Mr. Fairchild. Exactly ; it does not even have to have a neAv 
name, which apparently makes a great difference. 

The work Avhich I haA^e done, consequently, has been largely along 
the line of testing these on the public taste. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Doctor, before 3^ou go to that will you 
tell us what you consider the relative food value? 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 27 

Mr. Fairchild. I talked with Dr. McCoUum, of the institute of 
hygiene of the Rockefeller Institute, yesterday afternoon over the 
telephone. He is now carrying on extensive experiments with 1,500 
rats, testing all of these different vegetables. I said, " Doctor, what 
do you think with regard to this whole matter ? " He said, " Mr. 
Fairchild, there has been altogether too much said with regard to the 
change in food values as the result of dehydration. In my opinion, 
gathered from my own experiments and the evidence gathered in 
Germany, the food values remain the same." 

The Chairman. That is the testimony of the rat, is it ? [Laughter.] 

Mr. Faircpiild. It is the testimony of the rat, and rats are ex- 
tremely sensitive, and live on the very kinds of food that human 
beings do, and they are, as I understand, recognized as standard test 
animals in these matters of food digestability and nutrition value. 

Another point which I wish to put into the record relates to these 
substances which Dr. Alsberg knows a great deal more about than 
I do, of course. Dr. McCollum's attitude, as I understand it, to- 
ward these so-called vitamines is that the leaf vegetables, such as 
cabbage, spinach, and cauliflower, contains more of the substance 
which he calls, for lack of a better name, his " water soluble B " than 
do the fruits and the root A^egetables. Now, he feels that, owing to 
the high price of certain vegetables in the wintertime — for example, 
cabbage is selling now for $4 a hundred pounds in our local market 
here — the consumer, with a limited pocketbook, is going to buy his 
grain products and his essentials as he considers them and cut out 
these gi^een-leaf vegetables. According to Dr. McCollum's investi- 
gations, that is a great mistake ; that the children particularly, and 
even the grown-ups, need this particular substance which occurs in 
largest amount in these green vegetables, and which will not be 
bought by the consumers during the high-priced "vegetable season. 
Consequently he is much interested in the possibility of converting 
these leaf vegetables during the season when they are very cheap 
into an imperishable commodity which everybocty can buy when 
fresh vegetables are too expense in the winter season. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. The simplest thinker must realize the 
point of that. 

Mr. Fairchild. It seems so. 

Senator Norris. Eight on that point — I do not know ^vliether you 
intend to bring it up later — but if you have not, it seems to me ap- 
propriate, that it is very desirable, but the practicability of it depends 
upon its cost. Now, sometime during your talk to us, I would like 
to have you go into that, if you have made a study of the cost of the 
machinery, and whether it is practicable for an individual to con- 
struct the proper outfit to dry his own product, or whether it ought 
to be done by having one located in the community to dry for all 
the people, what it would cost to build, to operate it, etc. 

Mr. Fairchild. I can probably answer your question, sir, by giv- 
ing you a little historical summary of the development of our own 
investigations, which started with the outbreak of the war. Dr. 
Alonzo Taylor, now of the Food Administration, who had been 
through Germany and who had seen the building of these German 
factories, of which they have now in the neighl)orhood of 1,000, 
for the drying of vegetables, pointed out that there were three kinds- 



28 DEHYDKATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

of drying machines used by the Germans. There were the hirge class, 
very expensive affairs running into the hundreds of thousands of 
dollars; there were smaller plants, community plants, costing a.s 
low, as say, $5,000 to $10,000 ; and then there were itinerant dryers. 

The Chairmak. What would the itinerant outfit cost, probably? 

Mr. Fairchild. When we came to investigate the itinerjint, we 
found there were many features of it AYhich seemed impracticable. 
The space required for the drying and the time required to dry put 
it in a very different category from the thrashing machine with 
which we are very familiar. In other words, a thrashing machine 
would thrash the product from 100 acres in a very short time, 
wliereas an itinerant dryer would have to spend the whole sum- 
mer on that 100-acre field. So we concentrated our attention, in the 
first place, on the home dryer, and there were sent out to house- 
holders of this country literally millions of descriptions of home 
dryers, and a great deal of home drying was done, and I have here 
samples of some of the good home drying products. There is no 
question but what home drying has its place, but home drying, as 
I see it, never will and never can supply the city man at th.e height 
of the season in the hotels, in the restaurants, and eating places with 
a standardized product such as he will have to have. Consequently, 
the question of supplying the cities has naturally come forward, 
brought up by commercial concerns, the names of which Mr. Sweet 
has given you, who liave attempted to go into this field that is 
opening. 

In order to make the cost Ioay enough, the plant has to be large 
enough to utilize fulh^ the overhead expenses. The costs of drying 
I can not give you as accurately as I wish I could, nor have I been 
able to get at the cost of drying as accurately as it should be deter- 
mined. There are many complicated factors in the situation. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. It necessarily varies according to the 
size of the plant ? 

Mr. Fairchild. And the cost of the labor. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. The cost of the labor and the cost of 
the fuel? 

Mr. Fairchild. Certainly. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. And filling your plant, and filling it 
and filling it — continuous work. 

Mr. Fairchild. Continuous work. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. You could put a plant down in the 
southern part of my State, could you not, where sweet potatoes are 
very cheap, and you could get in that section such vast quantities 
of sweet potatoes always accessible that you could run a dryer very 
much more economically than where you could not just take one 
IDroduct and put it through as fast as you could move it. There you 
could reduce the cost to the minimum. 

Mr. Fairchild. Senator, I have been particularly attracted by the 
■ sweet potato possibilities. They are indeed perfectly tremendous. 
When you consider that the sweet potato requires 15 per cent less 
potash to grow than the Irish potato, that it requires much less nitro- 
gen than the Irish potato ; that it grows on sandy lands, where you 
can not successfidly grow corn — it grows in the region of the cheapest 
-labor that we have in the United States; it is a crop wholly under- 
stood by the colored man of the South. It is not limited by the 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 29 

factor of the cost of seed, for, as you know, in the second-crop plant- 
ing cuttings or fragments of the vines are used, and it is only the 
cost of labor, whereas with the Irish potato you have the cost of the 
seed. The fact is that you have two crops, not two crops on the same 
land, but two planting seasons, and the fact that the sweet potato 
contains less moisture than the Irish potato, making it easier to dry, 
the further fact is that it contains when dried as high as 21 per cent 
of cane sugar, making it a sweet product, and, added to that the 
fact, to which I can testify — I have here the recipes from about 40 
people — that it makes a very valuable food, and one equivalent in 
its calories, or almost equivalent, to that of corn meal, and is suitable 
for the making of pastries, of cookies, cakes, and all sorts of prod- 
ucts of that kind which are easilj'^ introduced because they are sweet. 
If you will look through that list of recipes and comments. Sena- 
tor, you will find, I think scarcelj^^ a criticism or objection to the im- 
mediate use of sweet potatoes. 

The Chairman. Have they not developed a breakfast food out of. 
sweet potatoes? 

Mr. Fairchild. They have developed breakfast foods and they 
are very good breakfast foods, indeed. I have not the actual food 
value of them, but I can readily realize that if they are made en- 
tirely of sweet potato they should have approximately the food 
value of corn-meal mush. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Let me add one thing to your sug- 
gestion, that they have raised as high as 700 bushels of sweet pota- 
toes on 1 acre. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes; immense exceptional yields. It would open 
the door to the building of a great sweet-potato industry in the 
South. 

Coming down to the estimate of cost, the closest estimate I have 
been able to get from others, because, gentlemen, I have not run a 
factory myself, naturally, was approximately a half cent a pound; 
that is to say, a bushel of potatoes weighing 60 pounds could 
be reduced to a meal for approximately 30 cents. 

The Chairman. You would have about 10 pounds, approximately ? 

Mr. Fairci-iild. And also have 10 pounds of meal. 

The Chairman. Doctor, in connection with the first proposition 
you advanced, if the Government should establish plants in con- 
nection with the land-grant colleges, or demonstration plants in 
some of these States, where vegetables are largely grown, would 
not that assist your propaganda in the introduction of these 
products ? 

Mr. Fairchild. I think it would, but the bill would have to be 
materially altered and so plain that the funds would not be used 
up almost immediately in the purchasing of the machinery and 
especially in the buying of the fresh vegetables for the purpose of 
drying, with no opportunity to sell those products. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Doctor, the drying would have to be 
a revolving fund? 

Mr. Fairchild. It might have to be a revolving fund. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. They ought to have to dry, buy, sell. 

Mr. Fairchild. As in the present bill, which authorizes the pur- 
chase of $6,000,000 worth of seeds, along those lines. 



30 DEHYDBATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

The Chairman. That is a very good suggestion. I did not pro- 
vide that it ought to be a revolving fund, but I see it ought to be so. 

Mr. Fairchild. Otherwise the money would soon give out. 

Senator Norris. They might take toll as thej^ did in the olden 
times when they took their wheat to the gristmill — bring in the 
product and take toll of it. 

Mr. Fairchild. I think the difficulty woidd be that the man on the 
farm Avho brought his product to market would have his own fresh 
vegetables. 

Senator jSTokris. Some things, like potatoes, that he could keep he 
would. 

Mr. Fairghild; That would not make it commercially feasible. 
We can return to the question of how^ well these dried vegetables 
would be liked. I carried on a campaign which I would like to men- 
tion in this connection. Assuming that we follow those who are our 
superiors socially in these matters of food — and I am convinced that 
the foods we are now growing, many of them at least, became estab- 
lished fashions through such agencies as the patronage of royalty 
and the patronage of the Pope in the old days, and similarly' to-day 
I have found by practical experience that Avith these new vegetables 
the higher I go up on the social scale the more likely I am to get 
people to interest themselves in them. The others follow their lead 
just as they do in other fashions. 

I got last summer a number of ladies in the Cabinet to taste a 
number of these dried vegetables to find out whether they would like 
them, and I have here the testimony from them. There have been 
given a number of luncheons, or dinners, in which these vegetables 
have been served just as you would serve fresh vegetables, and the 
testimony indicates that thej^ are very palatable indeed. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Can these vegetables be had anj^vhere 
in Washington ? Is there any place where they can be bought on the 
market ? 
, Mr. Fairchild, That is one of the difficulties; they can not be; 
and that is where the most serious check in the expansion of the 
business has taken place. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Can these vegetables be bought any- 
where in Washington in the market? 

Mr. Fairchild. That is one of the difficulties. They can not be, 
and that is where the most serious check and the expansion of the 
business has taken place. The distributing agencies of any dried- 
vegetable firm must be very large in order to cover the cities of the 
country, and unless something unusual is done to attract the public 
attention to these vegetables they will drag along and be a very 
long time before they are where people can get to them. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. How many plants would you say you 
could build with $250,000— good, big plants? 

Mr. Fairchild. It would be very difficult to say. The smallest 
sweet-potato plant which we haA^e even considered 

Senator Smith of Georgia (interposing). That is what I am most 
interested in. 

Mr. Fairchild (continuing). Would cost about $5,000. The dry- 
ing of the sweet potatoes we figured was a simpler process than any 
of the other processes. 



DEHYDEATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 31 

Senator Smith of Georgia. How many bushels would it turn out 
a day? 

Mr. Fairchild. It would turn out, according to the estimate, 500 
bushels a day. 

Senator Ransdell. It seems to me, if we are going to make a suc- 
cess of this thing and go into it in a big way, we have got to persuade 
ourselves, first, there will be a material saving to the person who con- 
sumes these vegetables. I want to know what studies you have made 
to show how the grocery bill of a man who eats corn, sweet potatoes, 
or tomatoes will compare in the future with the present, when you get 
this thing well worked up. I do not mean in an undeveloped form 
and as compared not with the present prices but with normal prices 
before the war. That is an important thing. If we can persuade the 
people they are going to get these things cheaper when dried by this 
process they will certainly take to it, if we go at it right. 

Mr. Fairchild. Senator, there is no question about their being 
cheaper. 

Senator Ransdell. Materially cheaper — how much ? That is what 
I want to get at. 

Mr. Fairchild. I can give you a concrete example. The Walter 
Reed Hospital wished to test dried cabbages and turnips on 428 men. 
We furnished them with 4 pounds of cabbage and 5 pounds of tur- 
nips, dried. The price of the cabbage fixed by one of the reliable 
firms was 35 cents a pound, which would make the cost of that cab- 
bage to the hospital $1.40, approximately. The cost of the turnips 
was 30 cents a pound, which would make it $1.50. If you look at the 
prices prevailing to-day, which are those which the hospital has to 
consider, the cost of 100 pounds of cabbage now is $3.50 to $4. 

Senator Ransdell. It would be the equivalent of these dried cab- 
bage ? 

Mr. Fairchild. No. The sergeant in charge told me that he nor- 
mally used about 200 pounds of cabbage. I do not think the por- 
tions of cabbage served were as large, but they were certainly half 
as large, so that at the rate of 100 pounds of cabbage which he would 
have to buy to take the place of the 4 pounds which was furnished, the 
difference would still be there between $1.40 and $3.50. 

Senator Ransdell. That is very material saving. 

Mr. Fairchild. That is a concrete example; and I went out there 
myself and interviewed the men, and Lieut. Baker, who has been 
very much interested in these things, and the men ate these vege- 
tables and liked them, and there was no question about the economies. 

Senator Ransdell. What was the saving on the other vegetable? 
You named one. 

Mr. Fairchild. With regard to the turnips and the difference in 
price it would be between $1.40 and the price of turnips to-day, which 
I did not figure out, but which I have here. 

And when you consider, Senator, that this is the beginning of a 
great industry that we are pioneering, it is important, indeed. 

Senator Ransdell. I assume, Doctor, that these comparisons w^ould 
be even unfair toward the dehydrated product, because they would 
naturally become very much cheaper in proportion when the people 
learned the processes and can make them in a large way, is that not 
correct ? 



32 DEHYDEATIOlSr OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Mr. Fairchild. The prices I have quoted — that is, 35 cents for the 
cabbage — inchides a considerable percentage for distribution and for 
advertising. It is estimated at 35 to 50 per cent. 

Senator Ransdell. Those are abnormal conditions which would not 
occur in normal times, whereas the prices for the other things are 
reasonably normal. 

Mr. Fairchild. The savings would be larger unquestionably on the 
more succulent vegetables. 

Senator Ransdell. AVhat do you think would be the principal ele- 
ments of saving to the producer, because I happen to be interested in 
the producer. I am a producer myself. Where will the saving come 
in to the producer, first, and then to the consumer in the price that 
he has to pay? 

Mr. Fairchild. We will take a concrete example in the sweet po- 
tato, because I have given rather unusual attention to that. The 
wastage in the sweet potato business, where the potatoes are kept in 
banks and in improvised storehouses, varies from 25 to 50 and some- 
times as high as 75 per cent. In unusually cold Avinters, such as the 
present winter, the vegetables are locked up in the ground, and be- 
cause of this extremely cold weather these banked potatoes are now 
impossible to get out. 

Senator SisfiTH of Georgia. And j^^ou can not rely on getting them 
as a steady food ? 

Mr. Fairchild. You can not do it. Consequently, the installation 
of dehydration, as I see it, in these sweet potato areas would lead to 
the utilization immediately from September to November of the- 
sweet potatoes, not only the firsts but the seconds as well, into a non- 
perishable product. That would stabilize the market. As it is now,, 
while the price per bushel would be much higher, apparently, to the 
grower, $1.75 a bushel would be what he is loolring at. How much 
of his crop does he sell at that price, do you say ? 

Senator Eansdell. A very small percentage now. 

Mr. Fairchild. A A^ery small percentage. The economic result is 
that we are really paying for sweet potatoes, which have the food 
value of corn meal, not 4^ cents, which is the price of a pound of corn 
meal, but 14J cents a dry pound, the price of sweet potatoes at present 
market price reduced to the dried state of sweet-potato meal. This 
is because we are marketing only a fraction of the crop. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. We are paying for the loss. 

Mr. Fairchild. We are paying for all the loss, and that is very 
discouraging. 

Senator Eansdell. And is it not true of very nearly every other 
vegetable? The farmer way out in the country can save anything 
he has got if you have these drying plants in the various communi- 
ties, if it is practicable, I mean, to have them. 

Mr. Fairchild. Yes. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. If it is true that by this process you 
can save the sweet-potato crop, is it not easily possible in the Gulf 
section to produce sweet potatoes in numbers of bushels equal to the 
entire corn crop of this country? 

Mr. Fairchild. I believe it is possible. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. You can produce four or five times as 
many bushels per acre of sweet potatoes with less work. 



DEHYDEATION OF PEUITS AND VEGETABLES, 33 

Mr. Fairchild. I have not gone into those figures, Senator, and 
it would be a question of statistics which coidd be easily determined. 
The area is capable of vast extension. 

Senator Ransdell. Sweet potatoes do not require any fertilizer, 
either. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Seven hundred bushels from 1 acre 
can be produced. 

Senator Ransdell. That is hardly an average. You do not be- 
lieve Georgia would do that on the average? 

Senator Smith of Georgia. No; I did not believe it until they 
brought me a half dozen high-class witnesses who saw it done. 

Senator Norris. I would believe it, too, if they would bring, me 
some of the potatoes. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. That section also will produce great 
quantities of Irish potatoes, but they have never been able to save 
them. 

Mr. Fairchild. The waste is gigantic. 

I would like to put into the record a letter which I received from 
the Royal Horticultural Society of Great Britain, dated January 11. 
I have kept in touch with this society for years, and I wrote to the 
secretary, Mr. Wilks, some time ago, asking him for any experience 
which he had in England which would be of assistance to us here, 
and I would like to read this portion of his letter : 

Then anotlier policy I >vouUl like to commend to you would be the setting up 
in youv country of public storehouses, properly organized and equipped, witli 
tlie conditions which the various vegetables require, and including drying and 
canning apparatus. V\'e are now trying to give some attention to this matter in 
England, and for two reasons: The first is that the enormous number of small 
growers which our food campaign has brought into existence have, most of 
them, surplus crops which go to waste for want of proper collection and distri- 
bution ; and the second is tliat were it known by these small producers that ■ 
there would be an organized receiving and distributing station for their surplus 
it would stimulate to an even greater extent their efforts and their cropping. 

Senator Ransdell. I am curious to ask some of you gentlemen 
whether these same processes can be applied to meats and fish. 

Mr. Horst. I can answer that. They can. 

Senator Raxsdell. That is very important. The ptomaine poison- 
ing we suffer from so frequently comes from canned meats and fish. 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir. 

Senator Ransdell. Or does it come from canned vegetables? 

Mr. HoRST. It comes from the canning process. 

Senator Ransdell. Of fish and oysters — you can not dry oysters, 
can you ? 

Mr. HoRST. Yes, sir; we do dry oysters. I have samples of dried 
oysters here. 

Senator- Ransdell. Let me get clear on that matter about the 
ptomaine poisoning, because we hear every now and then of persons 
suffering terribly and dying. Is that eliminated in the process of 
drying ? 

Mr. HoRST. Dr. Alsberg could probably better answer that than I 
can. 

Dr. Alsberg. Ptomaine poisoning is due to the growth on any food- 
stuff of certain bacteria, which produce toxic substances. It is 

42291—18 3 



34 DEHYDBATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

usually found in the nitrogenous foods, like meats, fish, and cheese, 
and anything nitrogenous. 

Senator Eansdell. Not so much on vegetables? 

Dr. Alsberg. It is rare on vegetables, although it occasionally does 
occur, particularly with articles like beans, which, again, are nitro- 
genous, and occasionally on corn; but it is very unusual in canned 
vegetables, and when it does occur it is usually on meats or similar 
products. 

Senator Eansdell. Doctor, would you practically avoid that dan- 
ger of ptomaine poisoning if we adopted generally this process of 
drying? Could you answer that question offhand? 

Dr. Alsberg. Ptomaine poisoning has not anything to do with the 
canning process. It is a question of spoiling. If the material that 
is put into the can is sound and the canning is done properly, then 
there is no danger. In the same wa}' in drying, if the material is 
spoiled, then drying will not necessarily make it harmless. The 
question is whether the material is spoiled or allowed to be spoiled 
in the process. 

Mr. Fairchild. Just one other fact I would like to insert in the 
record: The Tuslcegee Institute has been using sweet potatoes in 
the manufacture of its bread for the institution and for the little 
village of Tuskegee, which has 500 inhabitants, not connected with 
the institution, making in all perhaps 2,000 people. This sweet 
potato is either used in the form of flour or mashed at a rate which 
means a saving of 200 pounds of flour a day. Dr. Carver, of that 
institution, came up here with a most remarkable line of samples 
of sweet-potato flour, which w^ere made with rather primitive tools, 
but which showed conclusively the possibilities of these sweet-potato 
products. I have brought some of them here, and, as these testi- 
monials indicate, there is no question about the quality of food 
value and flaA'or of this sweet-potato product. 

Senator Norris. Before you leave the stand I wanted to ask you a 
little more about the practical method by which this drying can 
be brought about. As I understand you the practical method that 
you advocate is that there should be comparatively large plants 
established rather than small individual plants. 

Mr. Fairchild. As large as the area which they could control 
would warrant. 

Senator Norris. The idea is that if we could establish that it is the 
practical way of drying these vegetables to have large establish- 
ments, then we run at once into the danger of combinations, the same 
as we have now in meats and in the mills, so that if we could have 
a small unit that is practicable, perhaps not an individual producer 
have it, but something near that, we would avoid the danger of 
control of the output by combinations and monopolies, which we 
are liable to run into if we must operate in large plants. 

Mr. Fairchild. There is no question but that the small plant can 
turn out a beautiful product. These products you see here are the 
product of small plants. 

Senator Norris. How much do they cost? 

Mr. Fairchild. I do not know what this particular plant cost, but 
I know that plants costing $5,000 turn out beautiful products. In 
fact, with some of them it does not require nearly as much of a plant 



DEHYDRATION OP FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 35 

as that, and you have all gi-adations from the home drying, with a 
primitive plant, which does turn out some very good material, to 
the superb stuff that is turned out by the $5,000 or larger plants. 

Senator Norris. How would the small plant be able to compete 
with the larger ones ? Is the unit of cost a great deal larger in a small 
plant? 

Mr. Fairchild. I have not gone into that feature of it, but I think 
it ought to be gone into. The difference would probably be very much 
in the same ratio as in any other similar operation, such as milling, 
etc., with the exception that cheap household labor might be employed 
on the farm with small plants— cheaper than in factories. 

The Chairman. Canning plants. 

Mr. Fairchild. Canning plants or anything of that kind. The 
larger the unit, up to a certain point, the more economical the process, 
depending upon the supply, because, of course, the cost of hauling the 
vegetables to the mill is one of your important factors. You have got 
that haul always to consider, and you could not haul a load of sweet 
potatoes more than, we will say, five or six miles with a team and 
make it pay. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. No. In one of these big fields in South 
Georgia a man could afford to put up a plant, and with an automobile 
truck bring the sweet potatoes for 20 miles around to his plant, and 
they could be bought very cheap; and if there was a certainty of a 
market they would be raised in enormous quantities. 

Mr. Fairchh,d. The market could be had. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. At 50 cents a bushel you can beat 30 
cents a pound, I know, with sweet potatoes. 

The Chairman. I remember Jefferson once said that whoever in- 
troduces a new food plant into a country rendered a great public serv- 
ice, I suppose that would be equally true of a man who devised a new 
food for an old, such as this sweet potato flour. 

Mr. Fairchild. If appeals to one's imagination. 

The Chairman. It would mean a tremendous demand for sweet 
potatoes. 

Senator Smith of Georgia. Of course, I mean 50 cents a bushel 
right out of the field. 

The Chairman. We will now hear you. Dr. Alsberg. Kindly state 
your name. 

STATEMENT OF DR. CARL L. ALSBERG, CHIEF BUREAU OF CHEM- 
ISTRY, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

Dr. Alsberg. Carl L. Alsberg, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, 
Department of Agriculture. 

The Chairman. We would like to hear anything you have to say, 
Doctor, concerning the process of dehydration and the results of it. 

Dr. Alsberg. I have very little to add to the statements which 
have been made, which are very full and cover the subject, except 
that it may interest you to know that the matter is one in which the 
Department of Agriculture has been at work for many years. 

When the assignment among the various bureaus of funds under 
the appropriation made in that food-production bill was under con- 
sideration, the Secretary of Agriculture assigned to the Bureau of 



36 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Chemistry a sum of money to carry on work, experimental and prop- 
aganda, for this very purpose. The Bureau of Chemistry has been 
at work on that line, in cooperation with the trade, and we have 
also purchased two small plants, costing, uninstallecl, about $2,500 
each, one of which is installed in central New York; the other has 
not yet been delivered, owing to the manufacturing difficulties of 
getting any kind of machinery delivered at the present time. 

Senator Eansdell. Where is that to be? 

Dr. Alsberg. We have not decided where it is to be installed, 
Senator. 

The Chairman. I should think it would be well to locate it in 
the Southwest; Oklahoma should be selected. 

Dr. Alsberg. The matter comes down really to a matter of sales- 
manship. We are up against the same proposition that any merchant 
is up against who wishes to put upon the market any new product. 

The Chairman. I was just going to ask you. Doctor, whether the 
scientific work you have spent upon it has not demonstrated to you 
the feasibility of this process beyond any question of doubt? 

Dr. Alsberg. There is no question about it, sir. 

The Chairman. And it is now a practical question of getting the 
plants installed? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Do you agree about the product being substan- 
tially as good as the fresh vegetable? 

Dr. Alsberg. That depends upon what you mean by " as good." 
It has the same food value. It has not in all cases exactly the same 
flavor. It is not in all cases exactly the same product, any more than 
the ordinary dried apple that is on the market is the same product 
as the fresh apple ; but the dried apple is a very useful and valuable 
food, and has the food value of the apple from which it is made. 

So some of these vegetables will be regarded as just the same 
as the fresh product when they are properly prepared; others will 
be regarded as bearing the same relation to the fresh product that 
the ordinary commercial dried apple bears to the fresh apple. But 
that is an aesthetic matter — a matter of taste and not a matter of 
value in the diet. 

Senator Eansdell. In substance, they have stated it correctly, as 
you understand it? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. I want to ask you about this sample of corn that 
was dried on the cob. Is that the practical way to dry it? Can you 
take roasting ears and dry them? 

Dr Alsberg. I have had no personal experience with that. 

Mr. Gore. It is very easy to dry corn, but not on the cob. 

Senator Norris. Have you dried corn on the cob ? 

Mr. HoRST. I have done that, too. 

The Chairman. The gentleman who dried that, we will have him 
make a statement. 

Senator Norris. Were these samples of corn dried on the cob, as 
you see them here? 

Mr, HoGLE, Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris, And it is a practical proposition to dry the corn 
on the cob? Does it not take a great deal longer and require more 
labor and hot air to do it ? 



DEHYDRATION OP FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 37 

Mr. HoGLE. Not with our process. We do not dr}^ products with 
hot air. 

Senator Norris. You have a different process from those that have 
been described here? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir; entirely 

Senator Norris. All right, 1 presume you will be on the stand and 
you can tell us about it later. 

The Chairman. Doctor, you think if the Government was to estab-. 
lish these drying plants next to the land-grant colleges and one or 
two other demonstration plants in the horticultural and gardening 
States, that it would be of great assistance in securing markets 
through publicity ? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes, sir. The Government can put a thing of this 
kind into practice at less expense and in less time and more efficiently 
than interested private parties can. Exactly where each plant should 
be determined separately in each case. 

The Chairman. Particularly when the Nation is schooled on food 
conservation. 

Dr. Alsberg. The department has been trying to get consideration 
of these products from the public a great many years, and until this 
present emergency came along we were practically unsuccessful. 
Now every one is interested, and it may interest this committee to 
know that through the county demonstration agents of the land- 
grant colleges who, of course, are working in cooperation with the 
department, the department has had the drying of vegetables intro- 
duced in connection with the canning clubs. Small-scale drying was 
conducted through the county agents in a very large way last year. 
The county agents inform me that it has been highly successful, and 
that they anticipate a very much larger volume of drying this year 
than last. There were some products we did not understand last 
year as we do this year. But, on the whole, the field, so far as drying 
in a small way for the use of the home on the farm is concerned, it is 
pretty firmly established and is going to grow. It will be promoted 
in the coming year. 

Senator Norris. This gentleman answered about the corn. There 
is some other method of drying than the one described ? 

The Chairman. I expect that is an up-to-date method. 

Senator Norris. I wanted to ask the doctor, because he is an ex- 
pert, whether there are other methods than the one described and 
that we have been hearing testimon}^ about. 

Dr. Alsberg. I do not know of any practical method personally, 
by which I do not mean to imply that some other method may not be 
feasible, but I have no knowledge of any other method that is based 
on any other principle than drying with dry air, either cold dry air 
or warm dry air. 

Senator Ransdell. Doctor, would it not be entirely practicable for 
the Bureau of Home Economics in the Department of Agriculture to 
practically teach people this method? 

Dr. Alsberg. You mean home drying? 

Senator Eansdell. Yes, sir. 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes, sir ; it would, and in connection with the county 
agents. 

Senator Eansdell. And larger plants, if the people wanted to estab- 
lish them, they could show them? 



38 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes ; that could be done very well. 

Senator Ransdell. You have those agents practically all over the 
United States. I know down my way the local community contrib- 
utes a part of the expense of those agents. 

Dr. Ax,SBEKG. Undoubtedly, the department would have to w^ork 
through these agents. Of course, not all of these agents — perhaps 
none of them — are familiar with the operation of the large-sized 
plant. Such experts in the department as are familiar with them 
would have to work through the county agents. 

Senator Ransdell. They could be taught from the land-grant col- 
leges readily, I should think. 

Dr. Alsbeeg. Yes. There were one or two questions which came 
up, such as the question of alcohol. 

The Chairman. Yes. 

Dr. Alsberg. Alcohol does not exist as such in appreciable amounts 
in any of the materials in their natural state from which it is made 
commercially, Senator. Alcohol is always produced either from sugar 
or else from starch. Starch is the source of the alcohol, and starch 
remains in the potato after drying as it was before, so that it is en- 
tirely feasible to produce alcohol from dried potatoes. 

Senator Ransdell. They make it now from sawdust, do they not? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes; but apparently not quite as cheaply as from 
blackstrap molasses; and, furthermore, the cost from blackstrap 
molasses is about 16 or 17 cents a gallon, and from sawdust about 22 
or 23 cents. Of course, these costs have been shifted by the rising 
price of molasses, which is away up at the present time. 

Then, with reference to costs, I think there has been some con- 
fusion. We have thoroughly accurate figures in regard to manufac- 
turing costs for a plant drying, say, 15 tons of potatoes a day — a fair- 
sized commercial plant — which fix the cost of production, including 
interest and amortization and all the rest of the overhead charges, at 
a cent a pound, based on the dry product. I should say to produce a 
pound of dried potatoes would cost a cent a pound plus the cost of 
the raw materials, whatever they may be. That is a liberal estimate. 
In some localities it might be considerably less, but that is a perfectly 
safe estimate for a plant of that capacity. To calculate the cost of 
the product- you would have to add to the 1 cent whatever cost the raw 
materials would be. 

Senator Ransdell. A cent a pound on dried products? 

Dr. Alsberg. Yes ; a cent a pound on dried products ; that covers 
just the process — just the process costs — and that includes every- 
thing that a manufacturer keeping books in a modern way would 
charge in. 

Senator Ransdell. That does not include the cost of the package 
in which the article is put up, does it ? 

Dr. Alsberg. No, sir ; that covers labor, interest on the investment, 
amortization, deterioration, writing off, and all those charges. It 
does not include any marketing charge ; that would vary, of course, 
immensely according to the manner in which you were going to mar- 
ket it. 

The Chairman. Is there anything further ? 

Dr. Alsberg. Only one thing. In reference to the question the 
Senator raised concerning cooking: You can either dry vegetables 



DEHYDEATION OP FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 39 

cooked or uncooked — any of these products. They dry quite a little 
faster, many of them, if they are in the cooked state, because in the 
process of cooking the little cells of which the tissues of vegetables 
are composed are burst, and, indeed, that is the object of cooking, that 
and making things palatable, because when the cells burst the article 
becomes more digestible. When the cell is burst the water which was 
in that cell evaporates with greater speed, so that you can dry very 
rapidly and more cheaply if the article has been cooked. Some arti- 
cles give you a product which is tastier and of better flavor if cooked 
first. Sometimes you do not want to cook, but to blanch; that is, to 
treat it with heat for a very short time. " Blanching " is the techni- 
cal term the canner uses for a process which is rather scalding than 
real cooking. That is particularly desirable for vegetables like the 
potato, the cut surface of which, as everybody knows, will blacken 
on standing. 

That is also true of apples. And this blanching, brief treatment 
with heat, will interfere with the blackening process, so that there 
is not any blackening. Of course, the blanching of vegetables and 
fruits is universally practiced by the canner. Some articles he 
blanches and some things he does not. You can not make any 
general rule. It depends upon what particular type of product you 
want to obtain. 

Also, it will be necessary in this connection to do a lot of educa- 
tion on the preparation of these products. One of the reasons why 
they have not established themselves as they should is that not all 
the women are willing to experiment and find the best means of 
cooking. They are dealing with essentially a new material; they 
have to learn the best technique of handling that material, and that 
must also be taught, and that is again where the Office of Home 
Economics will have to be very active. 

I think. Senator, that covers the points I wished to make. 

The Chairman. We are very much obliged to you. 

STATEMENT OF MR. H. C. GOEE, BUREAU OF CHEMISTRY, 
DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

The Chairman, Kindly state your full name. Doctor. 

Mr. Gore. H. C. Gore, of the Bureau of Chemistry. 

The Chairman. Doctor, we will be glad to have any statement 
you desire to make on this subject. 

Mr. Gore. So much has been said that I do not know what further 
can be said to amplify the subject. We feel it is very necessary 
that the Government standardize the industry and save it the long- 
period of uncertainty that we find has existed in the past with such 
industries as canning. Mr. Sweet mentioned the large number of 
small drying plants which are now started up, and stated, I be- 
lieve, that a number of those plants were not producing a product of 
very good quality. If the public gets a hold of any large quantity of 
such material, dried products may get a bad reputation, which they 
do not merit, and we feel that if the Government can take hold of 
the drying right now we can do a great deal of standardizing of 
products and make them what they really are, if reasonably treated, 
and so save the industry perhaps years of development. 



40 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

The Chairman. Get them started right? 

Mr. Gore. Yes, sir. 

The Chairman. Something like Denmark has clone in her gov- 
ernment marketing of butter and wheat. 

Mr. Gore. The history of the drying industry bears that out. A 
good many products have been put on the market which have not 
held up well, and they have found slow sale. You can find at the 
present time, especialh' in the sporting goods stores, that they do not 
move. Our bureau is investigating the causes of that, and the reme- 
dies. 

The Chairman. It Would be possible to work out a plan from the 
plant methods of standardization so as to create that result and 
obviate the difficulties that would follow unstandardized stuff being 
put on the market. 

Mr. Gore. We are in position, at the present time, to give a good 
deal of information along that line, and will have more a little later. 

The Chairman. Do you know how many different processes there 
are of deh^'dration ? 

Mr. Gore. The principal process is simply drying the products in 
a current of moving air in condition to absorb moisture. Once you 
haA^e said that .you covered the vast majority of drying processes. 

The Chairman. Everything else is incidental to that, is it ? 

Mr. Gore. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. This gentleman was speaking of some other proc- 
ess. I would like to hear from him. 

STATEMENT OF MR. CHESTER F. HOGLE, REPRESENTING 
POSTUM CEREAL. 

The Chairman. What is your present business, Mr. Hogle. 

Mr. HoGLE. I am in the lumber business, principally, also the sugar 
business, and I represent the Postum Cereal, the Purity Oats Co., 
and a number of similar concerns. 

The Chairman. We would ge glad to hear anything you might 
care to say on the subject of dehydration. 

Mr. HoGLE. I have given a great deal of thought and study to the 
matter, on account of the tremendous needs that this country is fac- 
ing, not only on belialf of the Army and Navy, but for the populace 
as well, from the standpoint of supplying sufficient nutritive foods 
promptly and in palatable form. Last July the gentleman who is 
present here in the room brought me at my office in Chicago a process 
which he claimed at that time, and which I have since satisfied my- 
self of, as being the opposite of every other method of dehydration 
or drying of fruits, vegetables, meats, and fish, which has been em- 
ployed \\p to this time, and the results of this process as compared 
wdth the goods produced by other methods is manifest in the quality, 
in the appearance and color and in the flavor. So far as dehydration 
is concerned in this country, we have, comparatively speaking, 
practically nothing. 

Being largely identified in the beet sugar industiy and having 
been 20 years engaged in it, we are used to figuring in thousands of 
tons. At this time on this present crop of 1917-18, we have raised 
and manufactured in this country in from 90 to 120 days approxi- 
matelv 7,000.000 tons of beets. I have been down here since the 12th 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 41 

•of November with these samples. Probably some 200 Government 
officials have viewed them at the Lafayette Hotel, and many of 
them have taken them home and tried them, and without exception 
they have stated they could not be distinguished from fresh vege- 
tables. 

And now, for our present needs under war conditions, as an indi- 
vidual, and my associate, Mr. Hulbert, felt the same way, our first 
duty was to the United States Government, and with that in view 
we came to Washington with these samples and tendered the free 
use of this process to the Government, together with my services, 
Avithout remuneration for the term of the war. 

The Chairman. Is it a patented process, Mr. Hogle? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. For the erection of sufficient capacity, first, 
to take care of the entire needs of the Army and Navy, after which 
plants could be erected as desired throughout the country to take 
care of the needs of the civil population. The matter has been care- 
fully considered by various departments. The conclusion has not 
yet been reached. 

Senator Norbis. How long have you been at it ? 

Mr. HoGLE. I arrived here the 12th of November. My first propo- 
sition was that the Government should build the plants and operate 
them themselves to produce these products. I was then requested to 
ascertain on what basis I could secure the plants, and what the 
capacitj^ necessary would be; what would be the cost of the plants, 
and what would he the cost of the products, and in what length of 
time those plants could be put into operation. 

With this in view I took the matter up with our engineers in Chi- 
cago, and they advised that they could supply f . o. b. cars in Chicago 
sufficient capacity to feed 1,000,000 men within 90 days from the day 
they received the order, and that those plants could be put into opera- 
tion within 60 days from arrival at chosen destination^ where suffi- 
cient green material was available. On the present basis of 20 
ounces per man per day, which is the Government ration, all the Gov- 
ernment requires to feed 1,000,000 is a daily capacity of 650 tons, 
which is only about equal to the capacity of our smallest beet-sugar 
plant, which plants range in capacity from 500 tons to 1,000 tons 
green per day. Our greatest need in these products for the civil 
population is in the thickly populated districts, where green vege- 
tables are available temporarily and usually at prices beyond the 
reach of the ordinary consumer. Now, with meat and eggs at present 
prices and green vegetables practically unobtainable to the average 
man, he is in pretty bad shape, and it is my understanding that the 
Government figures to-day that we are now losing approximately 
54 per cent of our fruits and vegetables in this country that come to 
maturity, and they are never available, for either human or animal 
consumption, from such causes as rot, poor transportation facilities, 
poor marketing facilities, undesirable markets, market conditions, 
etc. In Germany, I am informed, on Jul}?^ 1, 1916, there were 861 
dehydrating plants in operation. I quote from the New York Sun 
of December 9 [reading] : 

In June, 1914, there were 480 dehydrating plants in Germany producing 
annually about a quarter million pounds of potatoes alone. In a food conserva- 
tion campaign organized at the time of Germany's first declaration of war 246 
new dehydration plants were added, 190 of which wore aided by Government 
funds. 



42 DEHYDRATION OP FEUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

That, gentlemen, is the secret of Germany's self -containment in 
the matter of foods throughout this war and at the present time, and, 
as previously stated, we have practically no capacity in this country 
to-day, viewing the situation broadly. 

Senator Norkis. Is this system of yours a dehydrating process? 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir ; a curing process. The term " dehydrating " 
actually means the removal of water, but our process is not a de- 
hydrating process in the generally accepted meaning of that term. 

Senator Norris. Is your process used in Germany? 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir. 

Senator Norris. It is a new process here? 

Mr. HoGLE. A new process. 

Senator Norris. Of these samples here, which are yours? 

Mr. HoGLE. All these samples here are ours. 

Senator Norris. At this end of the table here [indicating]. 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. Can you tell us something about the cost and 
practicability to put up a plant? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. In the matter of costs, the British Govern- 
ment recently placed orders for 400,000,000 pounds of fine-cut fried 
potatoes, which are cut in small squares, and available only for 
soup, at a price, varied through this coming year, if I understand it, 
of 25, 27|, and 30 cents per dried pound, which, if equally dis- 
tributed, would give you an average cost on the 400,000,000 pounds 
of 27^ cents per pound. In figuring the cost of feeding 1,000,000 
men, we would save the Government in actual cash against what the 
British Government has already paid — I presume you would like the 
exact figures— $10,579,433.33. 

The Chairman. What is that? 

Mr. HoGLE. That is the saving on six months' supply for 1,000,000 
men at the price the British Government has already paid. 

The Chairman. That is, you think it could be worked on that 
basis so as to make that saving ? 

Mr. HoGLE, We know it could. 

Senator Norris. What products ? 

Mr. HoGLE. Applied only to potatoes. 

Senator Norris. Just to potatoes? 

Mr. HoGLE. We have calculated it, because the Army ration may 
be 100 per cent, and, in any event, not less than 70 per cent ; so that 
is the thing we are particularly interested in. 

In addition to that, the Surgeon General's Office, on inquiry, ad- 
vised me that as near as he could estimate it, it took two men all 
day to prepare sufficient potatoes and such other vegetables as may 
be obtainable to feed 100 men. Therefore, figuring on the basis of 
1,000,000 men, the continuous daily labor of 20,000 men, or 2 per 
cent, of your Army could be released for other duty by the use of 
these products. In addition to that, you would save from 60 to 75 
per cent of the freight room and freight charges. On the six 
months' supply that saving in freight room would be 100,000 tons. 

Senator Norris. You are comparing the food prepared by the 
drying process and by your process. 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir. 

Senator Norris. You mean it would not taKe as much storage 
room ? 



DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 43 

Mr. HoGLE. It takes only 25 per cent as much storage room. 

Senator Noreis. And you would release men who prepare the 
food by having it already prepared ? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir ; by having it entirely prepared. ' You can see 
they are all ready to cook — peeled and sliced and ready to cook — 
and when they are cooked they can not be distinguished from fresh 
products by anyone. 

Senator Noreis. I wish you would tell a little more about the 
process. I am curious to know about it. I confess it is new to me. 

Mr. HoGLE. It is new, and the difficulties we have met have been 
principally on account of its being new. We are facing the same 
skepticism that confronts every new idea, which confronted the 
tel? phone and wireless and everything else. 

Senator Noeeis. It is not a drying process? 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir; it is a curing process. 

Senator Noeris. The effect of it is about the same? 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir. 

Senator Noreis. Take this potato. What has happened to that? 
You have taken the moisture out of it? 

Mr. HoGLE. That is very true. 

Senator Noeeis. That is the same as they do when they dry it. 

Mr. HoGLE. I know; but the results are entirely different when 
the moisture is removed by this process as against any other process 
known. In fact, our patent attorneys have advised us, after con- 
ferring with the Commissioner of Patents, that this is the reverse of 
every other process of drying that has ever been attempted, and 
the results speak for themselves. 

Senator Norris. Take this sample of corn on the cob here. 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. That is cooked, all ready to eat, is it not ? 

Mr. HoGLE, No, sir; that is raw corn. There is the cob right 
alongside of it; that is, the cob for that one in the bottle — the same 
kind of corn. 

Senator Noreis. Yes; that has been in water in this can? 

Mr. HoGilE. That is just water, with benzoate of soda to keep it 
sweet ; that is all. 

Senator Norris. And the finished product by your process 

Mr. HoGLE (interposing). Is raw, ready to cook. 

Senator Noeeis. Yes; but it is not this size. 

Mr. HoGLE. When we get through with it it is like that. When 
you buy it as a consumer, 5^011 take it and soak it, and when it soaks 
back to actual normal size you take it and boil it. 

Senator Norris. This I hold in my hand is the finished product? 

Mr. HoGKE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Noreis. And this in the can is the finished product, 
soaked ? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. 

The CiiAiEMAK. And the shrinkage is just about the same as re- 
lated here? 

Mr. HoGLE. The Government figures show, based on some 4,000 
tests, that the shrinkage is from 60 to 94 per cent; for instance, 
cauliflower, 94 per cent ; potatoes, 62 per cent. 

Senator Norris. The space occupied by the finished product is the 
same space that would be occupied by the ]3roduct if dried, is it not? 



44 DEHYDRATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

Mr. HoGLE. Oh, yes ; there is no saving in space between our prod- 
ucts, so far as space is concerned, and any other dried product. 

Senator Nokris. But, as I understand it, you claim that the process 
does it more economically and cheaper than the drying process ? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. Not only that, but that they can not be dis- 
tinguished from the fresh products either as to color, flavor, or food 
value. 

Senator Norris, Then the process must be less expensive, I take it, 
than the other ? 

Mr. HoGLE. It is. 

Senator Norris. Is it a process that would be practicable for an 
individual, for instance? 

Mr. HoGLE. Not for individuals ; no, sir ; at least we have not tried 
to w^ork it out to that extent. Our first thought, as I explained, were 
the needs of the Army and Navy ; the second is the erection of large 
plants at convenient points based on convenient raw material. 

The Chairman. What do you estimate those plants to cost, rang- 
ing between what figures? 

Mr. HoGLE. We have a price which we have submitted on capacity 
sufficient to take care of the requirements of the Army and Navy. 

The Chairman. How many plants does that involve ? 

Mr. HoGLE. It just depends on whether you want to start in a num- 
ber of places or put them all in one place. 

The Chairman. What I want to get at is what would one of the 
units costs, wdiether all in one place or distributed. 

Mr. HoGLE. One of our units with 1,000 pounds capacity a day, 
f. o. b. Chicago, would cost $750. 

Senator Norris. Does it require any technical knowledge to op- 
erate, or anything of that kind ? 

Mr. HoGLE. No, sir. 

Senator Norris. How old is the patent? 

Mr. HoGLE. Just this year. It is entirely new, but those men have 
had a hard time. 

Senator NoiiRis. What I would like to get at is, for instance, if it 
Avere a practical proposition after the war was o\'er, so that plants 
that are not expensive could be established in various localities. Of 
course, if you have to ship the product before preparing it long dis- 
tances then you interfere, of course, with its cost, increase it greatly 
and make it less practicable. 

Mr. HoGLE. Our process is entirely elastic in that respect, because 
Ave can erect capacity with fidl efficiency of from 1.000 pounds green 
23er day. 

Senator Norris. When yon said a factory Avoiild produce 1,000 
pounds a day could be erected for $750 

Mr. HoGLE (interposing)-. Could not be erected. 

Senator Norris. The machinery Avould cost that? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. Does that mean 1,000 pounds dried or green? 

Mr. HoGLE. No; that does not mean green. You can place those 
plants at any desired locality in units of frou.i 1,000 pounds to 2.000 
pounds a day if you care to. 

Senator Norris. Your patent is on the machinery? 

Mr. HoGLE. On the process. 



DEHYDRATION OF FRXHTS AND VEGETABLES. 45 

Senator Noeris. Is it for sale? I mean would you put up a plant 
for anybodj^ who wanted you to put one up, and allow them to use thci 
process if you erect the plant for them? 

Mr. HoGLE. We came down here to tender the use of this to the 
Government first. I have kept the matter entirel}^ in my own hands 
until the Government could say w^hether they cared to avail them- 
selves of my offer or not. - That was done on the advice of Mr. Harry 
A. Wheeler, food administrator of Illinois. 

Senator Norris. You have not decided yourselves then what you 
are going to do, or how you are going to operate it ? 

Mr. HoGLE. We have formulated plans to operate it commercially, 
and just as soon as the Government says whether they want to do 
anything with it. If they say they do, my services are at their com- 
njand. If they do not, I have ample means at my command to 
proceed commercially. 

Senator Norris. And then you will establish plants at various 
places ? 

Mr. HoGLE. Yes, sir. 

Senator Norris. Can you describe the process to us ? 

Mr. HoGLE. I w^ould prefer that you get a copy of the patent and 
read it, and then you can get it clearly yourself. 

Senator Norris. You could tell us in general, ordinary language, 
in a few words, so we would understand it better than if we read 
the patent. 

Mr. HoGLE. There is one objection to that. While it is patented 
process and the copy of the patent is available, if the notes of the 
stenographer here are for publication or for public circulation, don't 
you think it would be rather unwise to disclose a method of this 
kind for general information ? 

Senator Norris. I am not asking you to disclose any information 
that is secret, or anything of that kind. 

Mr. HoGLE. There is nothing secret about it. 

Senator Norris. If it is patented you would not run any risk in 
telling all about it. 

Mr. HoGLE. There is no risk in telling about it, and it is all in the 
patent, I mean to any, not if these remarks can be circulated. 

Senator Norris. They can be, of course ; thej will be published. 

Mr. HoGLE. I refer to the unwisdom of circulating particular in- 
formation about something that is for our benefit. 

Senator Norris. I should think you would be glad to have it cir- 
culated and advertised. 

Mr. HoGLE. I know, but should we make this process available to 
our enemies as freely as to ourselves ? 

Senator Norris. Not if it is patented. 

Mr. HoGLE. What is to prevent the process, for instance, from get- 
ting to Germany? This is far in advance of anything that they are 
doing. If you wish me to tell what it is, I am perfectly willing to 
do so. 

Senator Norris. No; I would not want it to get to Germany. 

Mr. HoGLE. That is the risk; that is the only reason I hesitate; 
and if you would care to call at the Lafayette Hotel you can see the 
full display of these products. Now, these restored samples here 
scarcely represent the products when freshly restored, because they 



46 DEHYBKATION OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES. 

have been soaking and subjected to the sunlight. But we have freshly 
restored ones at the Lafayette Hotel, and if you have cooking facili- 
ties, we would be delighted to furnish you with such products, and, 
then, you can satisfy yourself. 

Senator Norris. I have ; and my wife does the cooking. 

Mr. HoGLE. That is fine. 

Senator Norris. And I would be glad to, as I took some of these 
other samples, I would be glad to take home some of yours and have 
my wife try them. 

Mr. HoGLE. I will either send them to you, or, if you will call at 
the hotel, I will be pleased to explain this process and give you such 
products as you care to select, because we have a large line there. 

The Chairman. Unless there are further questions the committee 
desires to ask any of these gentlemen, we will close the hearing. 

(Thereupon, at 5.25 o'clock p. m., the committee adjourned to meet 
at the call of the chairman. ) 



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